


What I Didn't Know

by RandomLittleDuckling



Category: Glee
Genre: Basically Santana is clueless about her own feelings, F/F, It's slightly AU but only because some aspects of the Canon story are changed, and all the other old characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 16:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6812794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandomLittleDuckling/pseuds/RandomLittleDuckling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the one thing you were afraid of the most turned out to be your ultimate truth? What if loving her meant everything, but you just couldn't move, couldn't breathe, too scared of getting hurt or even worse - hurting her. </p><p>OR:<br/>Santana is in total denyal about how much she's in love with Brittany.</p><p>Now, this one is from Santana's POV. I know some of you guys aren't huge fans of first person narration, but you could just check it out and give it a chance anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Art of Persuasion

**Chapter 1 - The Art of Persuasion**

 

"Whow, whow, whow! What the hell, Britt?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I aints going to that snor-fest! Not happening!"

I was lying belly-down on my bed, hovering over a people's magazine I had been reading right up until a few minutes ago, when Brittany had come bursting in all excited. She was still jumping up and down, clapping her hands like crazy and beaming down at me.

She could not be serious, could she? A party at Finn's house? I mean he _used_ to be kinda cool. You know, like way back when he was still the one and only star-Quarterback and _not_ dating Manhands.

I had even been to some not half-bad parties at his house, but they hadn't been controlled by the most annoying dwarf the world has ever seen. And believe me… there is _no_ way this party wouldn't have the stink of Berry all over it. I don't think Finnderella even _breathed_ without checking with her first.

"Please, please, pleeeeaase!" Brittany hopped onto the bed, which resulted in me getting thrown about half a foot into the air and my magazine off the bed.

"Britt!" I half laughed, half huffed while turning around onto my back to keep an eye on Brittany who was bouncing up and down."Quit it! You're gonna squash me!"

"No I'm no-hot!" Brittany sing-sanged.

She lied down next to me however. In fact she lied down pretty closely and when I looked up into her face I saw that she didn't have that giddy smile anymore. The smile she was wearing now was quite different. Coy and smug and unbelievingly sexy.

Propped up on her left elbow she bent her head low over mine until she was so close I could feel her breath on my cheek. It sent goose bumps all the way down my spine.

I hated it when that happened. Scratch that… I loved it. I just hated that she had this control over me. Or – to be more precise – I hated that it was so _obvious_ that she had this control over me.

If I didn't watch out everybody would be able to tell soon! They would know that it was really Brittany who called the shots in our friendship most of the time. Like everybody! The whole Glee-club for example and … oh my god … my parents! They'd probably all totally draw the wrong conclusions and think I was like whipped or something. They already suspected Britt and I were more than just friends, just because Britt had let it slip that we occasionally slept together!

_Geez! A girl has needs, alright! I mean, it's not like this is something serious… she's my best friend for crying out loud!_

Right then however I was jerked out of these exhausting thoughts, when her amazingly soft lips graced my right ear and she whispered in her most seductive voice, "I could do something else to you though. If you wanted me to."

_Holy shit, she's hot when she does that!_

Even though it felt like all my breath had left my body I managed to choke out, "Stop it, Britt."

Even to my own ears my embarrassingly feeble attempt at an order sounded less like an order and more like a plea. _Okay, seriously…really, really hate this._ I drew in a shaky breath and cleared my throat.

"I know what you're trying to do and I am _not_ gonna give in to your flirting. You can bash your eyelashes all you want, there is just no way in hell you're dragging me to that disaster waiting to happen!"

"Not even if I do this?" She put her lips to the spot right below my ear and I involuntarily let out a little sigh. _Damn it! She knows me so well._

The fingers of her right hand had started drawing little patterns on my abs and ribs. The way they lightly trailed over my shirt made me want to rip it off to fully experience her touch on my skin. I couldn't help but lean into her and as I did so my arms snaked around her waist, pulling her closer.

She instantly knew she had won.

Smiling victoriously she detached her lips from my neck, only to cover mine with them in a passionate kiss. I shuttered slightly and pulled her even closer wanting there to be no space left between our bodies. Her left hand was now entangled in my hair, grabbing my neck to hold my head in place as she shifted slightly to position herself on top of me, never breaking our kiss.

Her right leg between both of mine and with my hand still on the small of her back, I pressed her body into mine. My senses were so heightened. I could feel everything. Her warmth radiating from her dancer body, her left hand massaging my neck, her right hand ever so subtly inching up my shirt and her tongue running over my lips, demanding access.I immediately granted it and let out a quiet moan when our tongues found each other. I had kissed a lot of boys, but none of them kissed like Brittany did. Not one of them. Her soft lips, her warm, skillful tongue and her intoxicating taste. They were the reasons why, from the first kiss on, I had been hooked.

Hooked on her.

_Well, not really her. Just her kisses. She's a good kisser, that's all._

As our kisses grew more and more passionate her hand pushed my shirt higher up my body until the bottom of my bra was showing. She again trailed figures over my abs, only this time they really were on my bare skin. It burned. Everywhere her fingers touched left my skin burning like it was on fire. It didn't hurt, it just made me feel hot and dizzy. When she took my lower lip between her teeth and bit me playfully my breath got caught in my throat and I felt another shutter going through my body. My hands that had been travelling up and down her back grabbed fists of her shirt to contain the tension that was building up between my legs. My head started to get cloudy as I thrashed my tongue back into her mouth and felt her body shiver as she moaned eagerly, wanting me to keep going.

But I couldn't.

It wasn't like I didn't enjoy our occasional make-out sessions, because I did. God, I really did. It was just that lately they hadn't been that occasional anymore. They had actually pretty much been a daily thing and I just couldn't have that. Britt would start to think that they meant something to me, which they didn't.

_Well, duuh! It's not like I'm in love with her or something!_

So I gathered up all my remaining will-power – which was hardly any – and stopped my hands from grabbing her ass, directing them to push her off of me instead. I immediately missed the pressure and heat of her body against mine as I wiggled out from under her and landed somewhat ungracefully on the floor next to my bed. She looked a bit taken aback and maybe even hurt so I hurriedly said, "Alright, alright fine! You win. I'll go to the stupid party with you. Now get out of here before I change my mind."

It wasn't exactly nice, but it was what Coach always told us when she wanted to get rid of us but also wanted to let us down easy. And I really needed to get rid of her so I could cool off. I made sure I said it with a smile though, so Brittany would know I didn't mean anything by it. After all, this cooling off business was _my_ problem and not hers and certainly not her fault. Well… of course it was sort of her fault, but I meant not like in a bad way.

Her face lit up and she jumped off the bed and hugged me real tight. _Not helping the cooling off here, Britt!_ I tried to smile while she squealed, "Oh my god, yay! We're gonna have sooooo much fun! Promise!"

She jumped some more and then she twirled around and ran over to where she had dropped her backpack next to the door and brought it with her to the middle of my room, where she sat down cross-legged and patted the spot by her side for me to join her.

"Britt? Come on, seriously I got some stuff to do."

I actually didn't, but like I said, I really needed not to be near her as much right now. Her face crumbled up in confusion.

"But you said you'd help me study for our math test. You know how I keep mixing stuff up…" her voice trailed off, somewhat sad.

_Oh fuck, right I did promise her that._

"Oh, right. Okay, fine... I uum… I can do that stuff I have to do later anyway… " I mumbled hastily, trying to cover up my little white lie, before adding, "And you do know how to do it, Britt! You're just all nerves!"

It was true. Most of Brittany's issues with math – or school in general for that matter – had almost entirely to do with her nerves. Whether it was having to write a test or at the blackboard or even just her homework, which the teacher might request to see, Brittany just froze up. Her mum had told me once that she had always sort of been like that, but that it had gotten worse after this incident that had happened to her in second grade. Her mom hadn't wanted to tell me what it was in case Britt wasn't okay with me knowing, but like a year back, Britt had confided in me and told me all about it.

Like her mom had said, it had happened in second grade. She had been sick this one time but had still gone to school and then when the teacher had called on her to come to the front and speak or something she had puked all over his shoes. Until sixth grade the other students had kept calling her Brittany "Pukes" instead of Brittany Pierce. So now she hated doing anything of that sort and the fear had turned into habit and at some point she had simply been doing it for too long so that she just hadn't been able to catch up, which had resulted in her getting frustrated and unmotivated and everybody else thinking she was stupid and calling her so.

Well, and the other reason was that Britt just got distracted unbelievably fast. She could seriously be thinking of one thing and be distracted by another thought shooting into her head before the first one had even had the chance to be verbalized.

"Yeah, but still! You promised and even if it is nerves, not studying won't help me then, will it? Plus… I totally dig the whole 'teacher-you'. It's hot." Brittany's reply brought me back to the present. I refocused my eyes on her and watched her giggle in confusion.

"What's so funny, Britt?" I asked, raising my left eyebrow at her from where I was still standing next to my bed.

"It's just … that … we were like talking about math, and then I said 'plus'! But I didn't mean the math plus I meant the English plus…you know, the word." At this she stopped giggling and wrinkled her forehead. "Whow…hey San"

"What ?" I asked, smirking. I loved her confused face. It was so darn cute.

"I just confused myself. Like when I said I didn't mean math-plus, but the word plus? I just realized that the math-plus is a word too, so how do you explain what the difference is? " She looked up at me expectantly as I was still standing a few feet away from where she was sitting on the floor. I leaned against my desk chair. That was a good question. Brittany almost always asked good questions only everybody else was too stupid to get the logic behind them. That really pissed me off at times.

I pushed myself off the back of the chair again and went over to sit with her. "Hmmm, good question, Britt. I don't know. Maybe you could say like: the one is the word for the sign you use in math and the other is for the literary use…or something. I don't know. I mean, it sort of means the same thing anyway. That you want to add something. I guess the difference is that one time it is a number and the other time it's a word or an argument, right?" Brittany had followed my speculations with a highly concentrated look on her face, unconsciously nodding to what I was saying.

"You're so smart, San. You're like my mum's kitchen cleaner!" I decided to let that one go for now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright folks,
> 
> so I wrote this story here a few years back. Its completed version is available on my fanfiction.net account (Christina Lacrima).  
> Basically I'm re-uploading it here and changing minor things to the story as I re-read my own work and just have to adjust a little here and there. Won't make a difference to the outcome though.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy :)  
> Let me know what you think.


	2. A Quiet Evening

** Chapter 2  - A Quiet Evening  
**

 

*~*~* _2 hours later *_ ~*~*

 

"That can't be right!" I heard Brittany mumble behind me. "San, could you come look at this? I don't get it. I did everything you said but it still says 'error' on my calculator!"

I stood up from my desk chair and walked over to where Brittany was sprawled out in front of her math books and notes on my floor. She was lying on her belly, held up on both elbows, staring frustrated at the calculator in her hands.

"Haaand it over." I reached out my hand for the calculator while sitting down next to her. "Alright, which problem are you working on?" I leaned forward to look into her book.

Helping Britt with her school work was actually something I enjoyed doing most of the time. It was really cute when she got something. You could literally see the light go on inside her head when it happened, because she'd widen her eyes and grin really big and sometimes she even gave me a kiss as a reward for explaining it to her.

"The second part of this one here." Brittany answered, pointing at the text. "I've already written down the equation, but the calculator says it's wrong!" she whined, sliding over her notes for me to check. The equation was only half finished but right so far. I told her and said "Maybe you just put the numbers in wrong." I tried entering the whole equation into the device myself and got a result.

"Now that makes way more sense than 'error'" Brittany had watched me type in the numbers and was now copying the answer into her notes, a tiny smirk on her face.

"Oh my god! You totally did it again, didn't you?" I had recently noticed that Brittany had taken to manipulating me into doing her homework by playing dumb when she didn't feel like doing it herself.

"What, did you just push in random numbers until it said 'error'?" I laughed out disbelievingly.

Nodding enthusiastically Brittany rolled over and put her head in my lab. "Math is boring. I thought you wouldn't mind doing the rest." The blonde smiled.

Shaking my head at my best friend's sneaky behavior I finished what little remained of her homework while she was playing with my left hand, which was draped over her left shoulder onto her stomach just below the ribs.

Ten minutes later I was done and shut Britt's notebook with a little yawn. I stretched my upper body to glance at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It was 8.20 pm. _When did_ that _happen?_

I looked down at the blonde whose head was still in my lab. She was smiling solemnly up at me with a sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes. She had this look again. This piercing look that made me feel naked. Not the sexy kind of naked. The totally cheesy, she-is-looking-straight-into-my-soul kind of naked.

We were both quietly studying each other's features. So wonderfully familiar and comforting. She lazily lifted her right arm and stroked lightly over my cheek. I reflexively leaned into her touch and closed my eyes. Another yawn escaped my lips. I heard a low chuckle coming from Britt at this. I tried to protest but my "hey!" was modified by yet another big yawn, making it sound more like "hhaaaah".

Grinning broadly, the blonde turned in my lab and snuggled her face into my stomach. She shifted so she could put both arms around my middle and hugged me tightly. I was done yawning but didn't feel the need to defend my tiredness anymore. Instead I smiled and stroked her hair before I took a deep breath and started gathering up her things from the floor, leaning over her upper body.

"Hey Brittz, you hungry? Wanna go down and order some pizza or something?" My mum had a lot of great qualities, but cooking wasn't one of them. _Well, I think. I don't really know whether she_ could _cook if she had the time. But she doesn't, so whatever._

It wasn't like we never had warm food in the house, though. My abuela sometimes came over and prepared the most amazing meals for me. Every other Sunday she even taught me how to cook some of her best recipes, Lopez-style. Britt was the only one who knew I could cook. Because more often than not Britt had been here as well when abuela came over and the three of us had spent the afternoon in the kitchen, cooking and laughing. But even though I wasn't half-bad at preparing a decent meal I wasn't really enthusiastic about wasting my time in the kitchen when there was such a thing as delivery services. 

"Yyyhh mma..mmmm..m..mmm" Brittany mumbled into my middle. I chuckled. "What was that? You don't want anything? Alright I'll just order one for myse…"

"NO! I want one, I want one." Britt piped up. "San, I want one with…"

"…extra cheese, onions and capers, I know Britt-Britt. I'm just screwing with you!" I laughed, amused at the shocked look on the blonde's face, whose head had snapped around to look at me at my little joke.

My loud laugh had made my stomach tremble and had pushed Britt's head away from my stomach and further down my legs. When she realized I was making fun of her she turned her head and bit me right in the middle of my left inner thigh.

"OOOOWW! What the fuck, Britt!" I yelled, pushing her head and shoulders off me.

Britt turned around giggling."What?" She asked with an overly innocent look in her eyes. "I was getting hungry. And when you said I wouldn't get any pizza I had to find something else to bite into, didn't I?"

My ears immediately started burning hot. "Oh, whatever!" I shot back, rubbing my sore thigh and huffing dramatically. Ignoring Brittany's ongoing sniggers I stood up from the floor to grab my cell so I could order us some pizza.

* * *

*~*~* _1 hour later_ *~*~*

 

I was so full, I thought I was gonna burst for sure any minute now.

Brittany and I were lazily lying on the couch in my living room. Two almost empty pizza cartons and the DVD case of the movie we were watching in front of us on the coffee table.

"Once again my life has been saved by the miracle of lasagna!" Brittany spoke along with the cartoon Garfield on the screen. I looked over at my best friend and a smile escaped my lips when I noticed that she had sat up straight.

She did that every time we watched that movie, always at the same scene. Because, although we had seen Garfield fall out of that window and land in the truck full of lasagna about a million times, she still worried he might miss it this time and hurt himself. I loved her for that. _As a friend of course, I mean I love her as a friend!_

Wrapped up in my thoughts I hadn't noticed that Britt had stopped reciting along with the movie. Only when she cracked a smile and turned her head slowly to look at me, my senses kicked in again. I felt my cheeks blush and raised an eyebrow at her, drawing in a sharp breath that was supposed to sound like a yawn and hurriedly asked:

"Sooo, you as tired as I am? Man, those pizzas really take it outta ya, don't they." I stretched my arms and legs for emphasis and heard my stiff neck crack. _Ouch! God, I shouldn't have let Coach make me do those last few exercises!_

Coach Sylvester had made all of the Cheerios do a ton of laps and stuff yesterday, but for whatever reason this time – she had probably had a fight with her mum or Mr. Schuester -, she had made me stay after practice to do about a hundred more. After that and the hot shower in the locker rooms I had been so beat that I hadn't even made it home and had instantly fallen asleep in my car in the parking lot. In a _very_ unfortunate position. Thus the neck pain.

Brittany had watched me role my head around groaning with a small chuckle and was now wearing an extremely endearing puppy-dog-sympathy look. Pouting lip and all. _So cute._

"Aaaw. You want me to give you a massage?" Britt asked sweetly, cocking her head to one side and raising her eyebrows questioningly.

Hell yes I wanted one! But, like I said, I was trying to cut down on my sexy time with Britt, so as not to confuse her. _Or me._ And let's be honest. A massage from Britt would _definitely_ not be left at that. So I regretfully shook my head as another yawn escaped my lips. A real one this time.

"No thanks, Brittz. I think I really should get some sleep, 'cause I don't wanna be dead weight on Finn's party tomorrow. And, as badass as I am, even _I_ can't stomach one of those without a good night's sleep to strengthen my nerves." I padded her knee and pushed myself off my warm, comfy place next to her on the couch.

Yawning again, I grabbed the pizza cartons and made my way to the kitchen to throw them out and put the left-overs away, while Brittany was turning off the TV. _Man, I really am tired!_

After washing my hands free of the grease from the pizzas in the kitchen sink, I turned around, hollering " _Hey Britt-Britt! You gon…_ oh sorry!" I hadn't noticed that the blonde had evidently followed me into the kitchen, and had shouted louder than would have been necessary, seeing as she had apparently been standing right behind me the whole time.

"Sorry!" I said again, as she regained her balance after I had almost knocked her over, not expecting her to stand so close. "You gonna stay over? " I finished the question I had been about to ask her.

"I'm fine. And, yeah. I already told my mum." She replied.

_Okay, okay. It's okay, Santana. Just because we ended up doing more than cuddling the last three times she stayed over doesn't mean that we will tonight. It's not that hard to_ not _do something._ Even in my head that argument sounded stupid!

"Helooho! Man, you really are tired, aren't you?" Brittany laughed. "Come on, let's go to sleep."She grabbed my hand and pulled me up the stairs and into my room to get ready for bed.

A little while later when I came back from the bathroom after brushing my teeth, Brittany had already changed into her sleeping shorts and t-shirt she had borrowed from me, and was just slipping under the covers. I went over to my closet and pulled out my own sleep-wear. I was just about to pull up my shorts when Brittany burst into laughter.

"What, what?" I asked, startled by her sudden outbreak. But she was shaking and giggling so furiously now, trying to control her laughter, that I couldn't understand one word of her broken explanation. I got it however after looking down to where she had pointed, somewhere low on my body.

There it was. Red and prominent on my left thigh.

A perfect impression of her teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be updating this story about every day/ two days. Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Messages and comments are always welcome.


	3. It's Just Lunch

**Chapter 3 - It's Just Lunch**

 

"Thanks, Sanny! I could have sworn it was 53-18-08!" Brittany and I were standing by her locker after second period to put her books in there so we could sneak out and grab a bite for lunch.

It's not like anyone could _actually_ eat the food that was being served here! Especially not on what I call "French-freaky"- Fridays – where they only served French fries with some sort of meat, and it was a guessing game which was which-  so Britt and I made it a point to "eat out" as much as possible without getting caught.

Of course Britt had forgotten her combination again, but I think at this point I knew hers probably better than mine. After all, I had selected it, since it'd be me who'd have to remember it in the end anyway. It was 10-14-72. Those numbers came as easy to me as anything. I could never forget them.

We were ten when we first met, Britt and I. Fourteen days were the longest we had gone without seeing each other since that day, and Britt had once told me that she had had a dream, where she and I had been sitting together on the front porch of our own large-as-life dollhouse in rocking chairs, eating fondue and playing three-way-chess – don't ask – with Lord Tubbington. I have no idea how she knew it, but apparently in this dream of hers, the three of us – she, I and the cat – had been seventy-two years old.

"Sure Brittz. And those numbers aren't your combination. They're what you have to push into your calculator so it spells "BOOBIES" when you put it upside down. You forgot one of the 'O's though." I said matter-of-factly while I opened her locker with my left hand and held out my right one so she'd give me her books.

It had been the cutest thing, watching Brittany make big eyes and double over with laughter as Puck had first shown her what words you could write with your calculator during math a week ago.

Ever since, Brittany had been harassing Puck in every math class to show her more words, and you could see how much Puck regretted telling Britt about it at all.

Just today I had actually heard him murmur "This is worse than the time I found out that the hot girl I had made out with on my trip to Vegas was actually a dude!" under his breath to Finn, when Britt had relentlessly tugged on his shirt to tell her another series of numbers the device would turn into a funny word.

Finn however had been so horrified by Puck's statement that he had accidentally let go of the pen he had been wiggling about and it had flown right out of his hand and hit the teacher straight in the face.

It had been the most awesome sight, seeing both his and the teacher's faces redden simultaneously and Finnocence shrinking in his seat as Mr. Melton had screamed at him and given him detention for this afternoon. _Sometimes I just love math._

"Oooh! Hihi. Right, boobies!" Brittany giggled as she handed me her books to put into the locker.

"Hey Brittany, hey Santana!" Mercedes greeted, while I closed the locker door and turned around to head off towards freedom. "Where y'all goin'?" she inquired, speeding up to remain walking beside us as I had grabbed Brittany's pinky with mine and had started walking down the hall.

"Hey `Cedes!" the blonde chirped to my left. "We're gonna grab some lunch at BreadStix. You wanna join us?" I rolled my eyes quietly at this. Not that I had something against Mercedes, she was actually one of the few people in Glee I considered sort of `cool' for lack of a better word, but that didn't mean I wanted to share my "BrittStix"-time with her!

"Nah! I just wanted to ask you girls if I could catch a ride with you to Finn's tonight. My dad says I can go as long as I see how I get there and back myself. I think he's tryin' to teach me something…"she explained grinning.

"San?" Britt asked, looking at me to decide, since it was my week to drive us places.

"Urgh, fine. Just don't bring any food in my new car!" I gave in. What the hell, right? If I was going to _Finchel_ 's party tonight anyway – _barf_ \- I could at least see to it that Brittz and I had a good time. And with Mercedes' and Tina's drunken laughing riots I'd at least have something to smile about … and maybe mock.

"Awesome, thanks…wait, where are you gonna pick me up?" Mercedes called after us, as I was dragging Britt out the back door and into the parking lot. I didn't respond.

We had already wasted too much time on Wheezy and I really hadz to get my BrittStix on.

_I mean BreadStix…_

* * *

_*~*~*35 minutes later*~*~*_

 

"Is there anything else I can get you?" the elderly waitress asked us with a fake smile plastered on her wrinkled face.

"No thanks, that'll be all for now." I waved her off, while Britt had already started digging in her Pasta with Leek-Cream-Sauce. "Slow down Britt-Britt. No one's gonna steal your food." I chuckled. She looked up at me from her slightly hunched over position and smiled embarrassedly.

"Fouwy! Ipf fuft fooo gooog!" At this, one of the noodles slipped out of her mouth and she bobbed her head forward to avoid getting it on her uniform. _Coach would kill her!_

I let out a little laugh and reflexively leaned over the table to clean the cream spots from her chin and the corner of her mouth, my finger lingering just a bit too long. _She's so beautiful, even with cream all over her face._ For a flight second I thought I saw something flicker in her eyes but it was gone before I could figure out what it meant and suddenly I was aware of our surroundings again.

I cleared my throat as I leaned back on my bench and grabbed my diet coke, avoiding her eyes. _What just happened? I cleaned her chin free off spilt sauce? What am I, her nurse?_

"Thanks." Brittany stated simply. There was a weird vibe hanging in the air between us now.

"Hmm." I nodded, drawing on my straw extra slowly. _Aaawkward._

'Miaou miaou' Britt's phone meowed. It was her latest alarm tone signaling that she got a new text message. She alternated every few weeks between various animal sounds so none of them would feel left out. The cat one was definitely her favorite, although the dolphins came in as a close second.

She put her fork down and looked at her phone. Frowning slightly in what I assumed to be concentration, she replied with flying fingers. _She really is a fast texter… well in theory, cause…aaah, there she goes._ The blonde Cheerio laid her cell phone down onto the table, smiling at me with her lips pressed tightly together so that her dimples, that only _I_ knew existed, almost showed.

"Britt, you need to press send." I said, the hint of a smile on my lips again.

Her eyebrows shot up in realization and she quickly pressed the little button. "Right, thanks."

I fought back a smirk and asked who had written her instead.

"Oh, Mercedes." She informed me. "She just wanted to know what the plan for tonight was."

"What did you write back?" I asked, twirling the red straw from my drink between my fingers.

"I wrote her that I didn't know what she was talking about, cause nobody said anything to me about a plan, and that she should just ask you, when she sees you when we pick her up later." Britt deadpanned, bringing another big fork full of noodles to her mouth.

I had to laugh so hard that not only the people nearest to us turned around to punish me with their disapproving stares and annoyed tongue clicking.

But right then I didn't care one bit, `cause Brittany was soon joining in with my laughter after realization hit her and just like that, the weird vibe was gone and she and I were laughing till we cried.

* * *

*~*~* _a few hours later_ *~*~*

 

(6:45 pm)

_Sanny! Lord tubbington hid my make-up again! Can i borrow some?_

(6:48pm)

_San? Hellooho? Can i?_

(6:53pm)

_Alright I'm coming over now. Open ur window so I can get in._

(6:55pm)

_My outfit's totally awesome btw^^ yay shopping Sundays!_

(7:13pm)

_San ur window's closed! Come and open it…_

(7:15pm)

_Oh never mind. Just remembered that u told me that u hid a key 4 me here^^_

(7:18pm)

_I forgot where it is! Miaou!_

(7:19pm)

_Sahahahahan!... Sad britt:(_

(7:23pm)

_I'm in! ur mum was home. Did u know that? I didn't. I'm in ur room. Where r u?_

"San?" I heard Britt's voice through the thunder of the shower.

"Britt? What are you doing here? I told you I'd pick you up when I was done getting ready myself." I replied, poking my head round the curtain.

I almost slipped and fell as I saw what Brittany was wearing. The tight dark blue jeans fit her like a second skin and the short black halter top she sported had less fabric than some of Lord Tubbington's Christmas sweaters.

"Didn't you read my texts?" she asked, furrowing her brows.

"Uuum…wh..what? No? What texts? Britt, I've been in the shower…" I said, stammering slightly and redrawing the curtain. "Just wait in my room, kay? I'll be right out."

"Yeah, okay." She chirped and I heard the door close.

_Phhew. Alrighty then. Turning the water cold…_

* * *

*~*~* _40 minutes later_ *~*~*

 

I impatiently honked three times until I saw Mercedes hurrying towards my white Toyota Prius. As difficult as it was for me, I had to admit:

Tater Tots was _not_ looking half bad! She had somehow managed to make her weave look acceptably decent, falling down in shiny waves, and had even thrown on a navy blue something that brought out her curves. But in a good way.

"Why the hell is _she_ so dressed up?" I shot at Brittany questioningly. I was somewhat frustrated, because fixing up Brittany's make-up had taken a lot out of me. Seeing as how she had constantly babbled on about how great the party was gonna be, while I had had to try and make her look smoking hot while overlooking the hotness _already_ vibrating off her dancer's body, in order _not_ to jump her right then and there, it was a wonder I hadn't driven us off the road on our way here. _Man, I really needz to get ma mack on tonight. I hope Puck doesn't show up too late!_

"Don't know. Probably to impress Sam." Brittany gave back disinterested. _That_ pulled me out of my thoughts.

"What? What are you saying?" I inquired quickly, as Mercedes was only a few steps away from the car now.

"Oh. Sam's Trouty Mouth, Sanny. Sorry." Brittany tried to help my confusion.

"I know he is, Britt, I dated him for Christ's sake! I meant what do you mean, 'she's tryin' to impr…' " but at that moment the backseat door on the passenger side was opened and Mercedes got in, saying: "Whow, Santana! Where d'ya get that _car_ , girl?"

"Belated birthday present from my dad." I answered unenthusiastically as I started the engine.

"What? But wasn't your birthday like four months ago?" She asked confused.

"Yeah."

I felt their looks on me and acted as if I had to pay more attention to the road than I actually did. Or anyone really did for that matter, when driving down a deserted street in Lima, Ohio.

Britt thankfully turned on the radio and started a conversation with Mercedes about whether or not she should put her hair up or leave it down, and when I was sure the topic was safe, I joined in, making it clear that I would _not_ wear it up in her case, after what had happened the last time.

Which was, that Britt had gotten her hair clip stuck in her shirt during one of her infamous striptease, and had gotten so scared she would never find her way out, that I'd had to hold her in my lab to calm her down for over twenty minutes after I had been able to `free' her from her `evil' shirt.

_On second thought, up is pretty in this year…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, since I might not be able to upload over the coming weekend due to family plans, and because I'm in a good mood I'm uploading another chapter already. 
> 
> Enjoy and let me know what you think.


	4. Let's Get This Party Started

**Chapter 4 - Let's Get This Party Started  
**

 

The party was already in full gear – well, if there _was_ a car that only had two gears, so that this metaphor might actually work here - when Britt, Mercedes and I showed up respectably late, as was expected when you're not a total nerd.

See, it was a very delicate thing, coming to parties.

If you were on time or – god forbid – even early, that was totally lame and there was nothing to do, except shift uncomfortably, not daring to take the first drink – okay, Brittz and I weren't so touched by _that_ _particular_ social rule - and cough to avoid the awkward silence as there wasn't anything funny to talk about yet or enough alcohol in your system to conquer the dance floor.

If you came _too_ late however, it was no good either, as everybody would already be drunker than you – although _that_ might not be an issue at a _Rachel Berry bash_ – and you ended up not getting anything decent to drink or any of the insiders that had established before you got there.

However, being naturals, Britt and I had of course mastered the art of respectable lateness years ago.

But despite having once again managed to find the exact right time to show, I still got the immense urge to grab Britt and take a run for it. Cause even the best moment to show up at a party, was a pretty terrible one to be at the party, if said party was being hosted by one `Manhands' Berry.

I had been right.

Judging by the Barbara Streisand banner over the "cocktail-bar" – which should have been called the "Wine-cooler-table" – and the rendition of `singing in the rain' playing in the background, Finnessa really hadn't had too much say in this … let's call it `gathering'.

"Welcome, fellow-glee-clubbers! I am _so_ thrilled you found the time to join our little soiree! Can I interest you in some alcoholic beverages?" Rachel had of course immediately spotted us entering and was now standing in front of us, beaming and gesturing wildly about, clearly nervous and overly excited.

"Urgh, oh my god! Let's go, Britt!" I groaned, attempting to drag Brittany back to the door and to freedom.

"What? But Sanny…" Brittany protested surprised, as Rachel's face fell in shock and disappointment. "You promised! Remember? You said we could go when we were maki…"

"Alright! Alright!" I hastily interrupted Brittany from spilling the beans, _again_.

"Fine, we'll stay. But you better put something else on, Hobbit, cause that's just… well, actually…is that _you_ singing?" just at that moment had I noted a certain `emotional tremble', I was only too familiar with from a certain, annoying, solo-hogging diva, coating the refrain of the old song.

"Why yes, Santana. Thank you for noticing!" Rachel lit up. Excited that I had recognized her voice and completely ignoring the fact that I had actually told her to shut it off rather than that her voice was amazing, or whatever her weird brain had made of my words, instead of the insult it had supposed to be.

I guess she was getting pretty good at ignoring the mean things I was constantly throwing in her face.

_Good for her._

As I was trying to suppress the need to roll my eyes – and miserably failing -, Britt was happily clapping her hands beside me and Mercedes was craning her neck, obviously looking for someone.

I followed her gaze and soon both of us found who she was looking for.

Sam.

The blonde boy with the freakishly fat lips was standing on the other side of Finn's living room, Rachel had just pushed the three of us into, talking to Rory and Sugar, who was hanging on to Irish's arm, clearly having been smart enough to pregame before coming here. _Damn, I should've thought of that!_

Noticing the both of us staring, Rory waved at Mercedes and me to join them. When I turned around to tell Britt where we were going, she was already gone.

Looking around the room to search for her, I noticed who else was already here.

There were Tina and Mike, leaning against a book shelf, yawning. Artie and Quinn were playing some card game on the coffee table, looking slightly more alive than Asian one and Asian two, and, sitting in the big armchair next to them, watching their game, was Finn.

Rachel was still standing next to me, rubbing her hands excitedly and nodding approvingly at the turn-out. I shook my head in bewilderment at her complete loss of reality – she couldn't seriously consider this a success, right? Getting slightly annoyed by her cluelessness, I turned on my heel and went to explore the house a bit and maybe find Brittany… or Puck…or some booze.

When I got to the kitchen I could already here Brittany's giggling and was relieved that she hadn't gone outside and gotten lost again. She had a real talent to disappear in the first ten minutes of a party and emerge about an hour later, totally drunk and wearing considerably less clothes than when we had arrived.

Not this time though. This time she had apparently gone and found the kitchen and in it …

"Teen Jesus? What are _you_ doing here?" I frowned, going to stand next to Brittany, who was sitting on the counter.

"Oh, hey, Santana!" He gave a little nod. "Rachel was cool enough to invite me. I gotta say, hanging with you guys is totally awesome. Really neat of you all to include me like this."

I raised my eyebrows at that.

_I_ had certainly _not_ gone out of my way to include him in _anything_. The weird looking hippie had just joined the Glee-club last week and, as far as I was concerned, was still on probation.

Somehow I didn't quite like his overly religious attitude and just felt really suspicious about what his intentions were that made him join Glee.

Brittany however seemed to really like him, so I had agreed to give him a chance on the condition that I could personally kick him out if he started suggesting songs like "Christ the lord is risen today".

"Well, it's what Jesus would have done, right?" I declared sarcastically, earning me a surprised but delighted smile from both, Joe and Brittany. I'd have to explain the concept of sarcasm to her again, later.

While the two of them went back to their discussion of how his hair had gotten the way it was – Joe was desperately trying to convince Brittany that it had actually been a _hair-stylist_ who had braided his dreads and _not_ little birds like in Cinderella – I decided to see if I could find Puck.

Strolling back to the living room again, I noticed that there were actually pictures of Rachel hanging on the walls.

In Finn's house.

Not pictures of him _and_ Rachel, no;

Pictures _just_ of Rachel. All framed and everything.

_Man, he is more whipped than I am!_

Being distracted by a slightly disturbing picture of an eight year-old Rachel in a glittering wonder woman costume with a microphone in her hand on what seemed to be a Silvestre party, I almost jumped out of my skin when someone pounded on the front door, which I was standing not a foot away from.

"I'll get it, I'll get it!" I heard Rachel sing-sung from the living room, but as I was already here, I opened the door to reveal a suspiciously evil grinning Puck, carrying a huge, curiously clinking, bag.

"LET'S GET THIS PARTY ROOLLLLIIIN'" he hollered, laying his arm around my shoulder and pushing me off towards the kitchen.

_This could get interesting!_

Rachel, Finn, Quinn and Tina all followed me and Puckerman into the Hudson kitchen, all cheering, except for Rachel who was shrieking something about not wanting to be involved in underage drinking and whether we hadn't seen her wine-coolers, or whatever.

Grinning at Britt as the lot of us entered the kitchen, I decided to give this party another chance…

* * *

*~*~* _2 hours and several drinks later*~*~*_

 

"Blaine, stop it!" Kurt giggled hysterically.

The two of them had shown up shortly after Puck and, to my surprise, Blaine had been doing shots with me and Quinn not five minutes later. Although not drinking himself, Kurt obviously hadn't minded his boyfriend enjoying a few cocktails.

Right up until a minute ago anyways, when Blaine had tried to convince Kurt to dance with him and had started tickling him when he had refused.

I was wearily watching the two of them tease each other playfully, as I sat on the floor in front of the couch with Tina and Quinn and my half empty cup of Vodka-Lemon in my hand.

Tina was also watching the boys, who were now both laughing and chasing each other around the living room. Only she seemed to rather enjoy it.

Not me. I had this annoying jealous feeling nagging on my nerves, watching those two love-birds shoving their _awesome_ relationship in my face.

_I get it! You're happy. Geez!_

Puck, Britt and I had been dancing until some time ago, when Rachel had changed the party music Puck had put on to something really slow and Puck had dragged Brittany to help him get us some more drinks from the kitchen. They hadn't returned yet, probably having forgotten about me… _sniff._

Feeling one of my usual "drunk-crying-fits" coming on, I quickly stood up – well as quickly as I could without falling on Quinn.

_Need to find Puck!_

Puck would always make me feel better when I had my booze-induced-hysterics.

I could either distract myself by making out with him or otherwise make myself feel better by going all Lima Heights on his ass.

Feeling lightheaded from one too many shots of Tequila I had downed with Quinn earlier, I stumbled slightly and almost crashed into Mike who was bringing Tina another one of his self mixed cocktails that smelled strongly of rum, cherries and cream – _puke_.

Catching myself in the last second however, I went around the couch and past Artie, who was sitting in his wheelchair next to the coffee table and staring at somewhere behind me.

I looked around the room, spying for Brittany. _I mean Puck!_

Rachel, who had actually pulled the stick out of her ass about an hour ago, and was now at least as drunk as me, hung on to Finn, who was smiling goofily and shifting from one foot to the other, in, what I supposed to be, an attempt at dancing.

Next to them, Kurt and Blaine, apparently having stopped the tickling, were doing the same, if slightly more successfully. Sugar had sobered up somewhat and was now full-on flirting with a very flustered looking Rory, leaning against the far wall, playing with the collar of his shirt.

Puck however was nowhere to be seen, as were Brittany, Teen Jesus or Mercedes and Sam for that matter.

I was just about to go look for them in the kitchen, when they came back into the living room, Puck holding two bottles of Tequila in his hands. One half full and one empty…

"Who's ready for some SPIN-THE-BOTTLE!"

* * *

_*~*~*10 minutes later*~*~*_

 

We were finally all seated around the bottle on the carpet in the middle of the room.

Mercedes and Tina, who loved this game, had actually managed to convince _everybody_ to join in.

Even Rachel and Kurt were looking rather excited.

Taking a look around the circle, that was more the shape of an egg, I suspected Joe was _on_ something, as he just smiled peacefully, while Brittany kept tugging on his hair, probably looking for fairies or birds or something. _Brittany's soooo pretty._

Shaking my head slightly to refocus my attention on the game at hand, I sat up straight and slurred:

"So'r we gonna play'or what? Puck! Com'ere!" I padded the spot next to me for Puck, who had just gotten another bottle of booze from the kitchen, so he wouldn't have to get up later, to sit down.

He did – a little ungracefully – and spun the bottle himself.

It spun and spun, making me feel a little nauseous – _need to take a break from drinking! -_ , and finally landed on Tina.

The Asian girl squealed excitedly and looked expectantly at Puck.

"Truth or dare?" He asked.

"Dare!" Tina giggled to Mike's horror. He knew only too well what Puck's dares usually entailed.

And as feared by Mike, Puck's eyes immediately lit up with joy and an evil grin appeared on his lips.

"Alright, Tina, ma girl! I dare you tooo… kiss Rachel!" He said, wiggling his fingers.

Ever since we had forbidden him to only ever dare all the girls to kiss _him_ , he had taken it up to always dare them to kiss other girls. Personally, I didn't see what the problem was with that.

Mike's jaw unclenched. Rachel would never go for that.

But to everyone's surprise, Rachel got up – a bit unsteadily -, strode over to Tina and kissed her full on the mouth. A common gasp was shared at this and Puck wolf whistled, delighted.

It was no `making out', but it was a pretty decent kiss for the usually so stuck-up Hobbit, who was reclaiming her seat on an awestruck Finn's lab, nervous red spots on her cheeks and neck, and biting her lip.

When everybody had gotten over the shock of seeing Rachel and Tina lock lips - except for Mike who was still staring at his girlfriend in disbelieve - ,Tina, smirking broadly and pink in the face, grabbed the bottle and spun it.

It landed on Brittany.

"Dare!" Brittany shouted out before Tina could ask the question and I let out an amused chuckle.

She looked so eager! _Oh My God. She is such a party queen. Gotta love her for that!_

As the game went on, the truths and dares got more and more revealing and delicate.

Brittany had already had to French-kiss Mike, Sam and a squealing Quinn, whereas I had been dared to full-on make out with Rory, lick up Tina's cleavage and take off my shirt, which had of course been Puck's idea.

As per rule, all couples participating had to suck it up if their partner had to kiss someone else, or they'd be `suspended', as Puck called it.

I swear to god. Sometimes he took it a bit too seriously. What with the oath and everything!

Mercedes and Tina had both gone into fits of laughter when Kurt, turning an unhealthy shade of purple, had had to confess to us that he had imagined making out with Finn against his car, when he had had a crush on him.

Us others really _hadn't_ been so thrilled by that image, especially Finn, whose face had turned scarlet and who had started coughing furiously, avoiding eye-contact with anyone. And of course Blaine, who was still staring unblinkingly at Finn, probably trying to kill him by the looks of it.

To my surprise, Mercedes had only chosen dare as well as Brittany and me, which wasn't her usual choice. And thinking about it, so had Sam and Artie. Either they all really wanted to get some weird action tonight or they just didn't want to have to tell the truth about something.

Whatever it was…

It made Puck declare this party the _best_ party _ever_ about fifteen times, each time making Rachel `WOOOO' loudly and raise her cup to toast the room at large, and me think that there must be something in the water…

_Oh wait, yeah. That would be Vodka, not water_.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part one of the party.
> 
> Next one coming up later today ;)


	5. Reckless

**Chapter 5 - Reckless  
**

 

We had been playing Spin-The-Bottle for like half an hour, when the bottle landed on me again, with Puck asking the question.

"So, Santana! Truth or dare?" he grinned.

I was amazed at how sober he sounded. Hadn't he been drinking about twice as much as me? I tried to remember how many times I had seen him refill his cup until I realized that that wouldn't help me anyway, as Puck had started to drink directly from the bottle when we had sat down to play.

"Helooho! Santana! You still with us?" A hand was being waved in front of my face and I jerked my head backwards, annoyed and frowning.

"What? Hey! Stop it, ass-face. Sure I am. I pick dare." I wasn't about to be as stupid as Kurt or Rory and pick truth when Puck was the one asking. _I_ did not want to be asked what I pictured when I did it myself or something equally pervy. Besides, I had played this game so many times and had done so many dares, I didn't think there was one I'd really get upset about anymore. The way the booze clouded my judgment of what was embarrassing and what wasn't also helped make this decision so easy.

"Alright, take of your pants!" he said calmly.

I snorted. Really? That was his big dare? He had seen me naked for crying out loud!

I got up, if a bit unsteadily, and started wiggling out of my skin tight pants to heavy cheering from the boys and Brittany. And …Rachel? She must really have had a lot to drink! She was practically bouncing up and down on her knees, clapping excitedly and chanting "Strip, strip, strip-", which made me laugh loudly and wiggle my eyebrows at her, just to see Finn's face pale even more beside her.

"WWOOOOOOHHH! YEAH!" Puck and Rachel hollered in unison and Brittany was grinning from ear to ear, biting her lip.

I gave a little bow, rolling my eyes, and sat back down, now only wearing my black lacey underpants and the matching bra. "Wow! Now that was really hard! It's almost like you would see me in my bikini! Oh my god!" I sneered sarcastically, looking at Puck in mock terror.

His face slightly fell when he rethought his dare at my words. "Oh!" was all he said.

Maybe he _was_ a bit drunk.

I snorted again, shaking my head and grabbed the bottle to spin it, when Kurt gasped and Quinn copied him almost instantly, saying: "Holy shit, Santana! What the hell is that?" she was looking disgusted and intrigued at the same time.

"What? What the fuck are you talking about, Fabr-" I spat, until I followed their gaze.

_Fuck! Shit shit shit! No no no! Fuck, Brittany!_

The bite mark.

They were all staring at the bright pink bite mark, Brittany had imprinted on my left inner thigh, the evening before.

My eyes widened and my head snapped up to look at Brittany of its own accord. For a second I saw my shock mirrored in her expression, before I hastily looked away so nobody would get suspicious.

Before I could even catch my breath to _think_ of a way to prevent them from making a big deal out of this, it was already happening.

"Whow, Lopez. Niiice! Gett'n ya nasty on! The Puck approves!" Puck hollered, trying to touch the mark.

Swatting his hand away panicked, I heard Rachel shriek "Woooooo! Yay! Go Santana!" in amusement and Tina and Mercedes burst out into roaring laughter, in which Mike, Artie and Sam joined in after a second of drooling. One of them shouting: "OOOhh! Santana got seeerved!"

"Shut up!" I shouted, angrily shoving Puck's inspecting face away from my leg and jumping up to get my pants.

Quinn was still staring at me disbelievingly and Kurt was hiding behind Blaine, pressing his hands to his eyes and chanting "oh-my-god-oh-my-god-i-did-not-just-see-that-oh-my-god!", while Blaine just tried to discretely look away, looking at Teen Jesus instead, whose eyebrows were slightly raised, but didn't react otherwise to my surprise.

Unlike Finn, who was now an unhealthy looking shade of red in the face, as he tried to calm down an uncontrollably laughing Rachel in his lap.

And Sugar was apparently suddenly very interested in Rory's ear, which was almost as red as her cheeks.

Frantically pulling up my skin tights, I felt my own ears burn hot and heard Puckerman's disappointed shouts: "Aaaw! Come on, Santana! You can't put them back on! That's against the oath!" but Quinn cut across his pouting objections with a nice comment of her own "S, come on! Like we didn't all expect to see that sooner or later! Who's the lucky biter?" she grinned wickedly. _Bitch!_

"Uuum, I, shut up …I …it's n-not…um…my c-curling iron, just …you k-know-"I stammered desperately, instantaneously feeling sobered-up and my face burning unbelievably hot as I straightened up and turned around to look at her furiously.

Still a little in shock, I looked back over at Brittany.

I did not expect to see what I discovered when my eyes found her.

She was shaking. Face red and contorted. Shoulders heaving uncontrollably.

She was _fucking laughing_ at me! _What the hell?_

I quickly looked away again, accepting that she wouldn't be of much help right now, and scowled at the others with as much authority as I could muster.

"Shut the fuck up! Why don't we all just take a second to remember Kurt's and Finn's nice make-out-session in the pretty boy's mind, huh? Or Finn's grilled-cheese-fetish!" I growled as I sat back down and spun the bottle fiercely.

The others had quieted down some and I kept my gaze on the empty bottle until I was sure they were done trading looks and exchanging whispers.

The game went on for a few rounds, before we decided to stop, as it just got more and more ridiculous as Rachel, Tina and Mercedes didn't even bother to stop laughing between dares anymore. Actually they were positively crying with laughter at this point. It was a bit frightening to be honest.

As our little sitting circle dissolved I got up to get myself another drink when someone grabbed my wrist and I was being dragged out of the living room.

"Whow, hey…what? Brittany, what are you doing?" Brittany was pushing me down the hall and past the kitchen, her expression determined, until we reached the stairs. There she turned around and before I could even blink her lips were on mine.

My whole body froze. I drew in a sharp breath and felt sparks erupt from where her lips slowly moved against mine. Her one hand on my wrist, the other in my hair, I swayed slightly but didn't fall as I thought I would. My knees were so weak.

As she was standing on the first step of the stairs, she was hovering over me and I had to stand on my tip toes to keep kissing her. And I really _really_ wanted to keep kissing her.

"Britt-" I gasped, when I felt her hand wander from my hair over my shirtless chest and stomach to the top of my pants. "S-stop! The others…they're…oh."

I was taken by surprise when Brittany just grabbed me by my wrists again and started pulling me up the stairs, groaning impatiently.

We were both giggling excitedly as the blonde pushed me into an empty bedroom, Finn's by the looks of it. But as soon as the door was closed, Brittany rounded on me and before I knew it I was being pressed against the door by her strong body, my arms pinned to the wood behind me, next to my head, and she was kissing me again.

I couldn't think anything anymore. My mind was completely blank, my body humming with the excitement and pleasure every single one of her touches gave me. I had missed her so much. Her soft lips upon mine, moving in the most breathtaking way, her warm tongue, silken and adamant against my lower lip, demanding access, which she of course got. I would never deny her anything, if I could help it. At least I didn't want to.

Brittany leaned down and whispered in my ear: "That was so _hot_! Seeing my bite mark on your thigh like that! _So_ hot!" her hands roaming up my sides, eliciting a little moan from my kiss swollen lips, as her thumbs brushed teasingly against my nipples. She kissed me more forcefully, grabbing my head with her right hand to keep it from banging against the door.

By the time she had dragged me over to the bed, I was already panting heavily, clinging onto her neck to keep our desperate mouths from parting as she carefully laid me down on the mattress.

She seductively inched both of our bodies up the bed until we were lying right in the middle, Brittany hovering above me, nibbling and kissing from my collarbones, along the lines of my jaw, to the pulse point right below my ear. She lingered there for a moment and just when I thought she would move away again, she bid down hard. I cried out loudly and felt the heat rise within me, running through my body to my very core between my legs.

My abs were contracting as her fingertips trailed over them, brushing up to the bottom of my bra teasingly, before kneading down again. My breathing was labored and I let out a high pitched sigh as she bid my lower lip sexily and shifted to put her leg between the both of mine. "Oh god! Britt-!" I moaned out desperately as she pressed her thigh to my centre and strongly rolled her hips into me.

I was completely under her control. That had never happened before. Normally I was the one on top, the one who called the shots. Well, most of the time. But lately Britt had taken over more and more until this moment, where she could have made me do anything and she could have done anything to me, she wanted.

Our bodies were now frantically moving into each other, hips rolling together, hands flying over bare skin and tangling in blonde and brown hair. I wasn't the only one struggling to breathe when the pace picked up, and Britt moaned loudly as I sucked on the soft, exposed skin of her neck, biting down on her hard.

I was so high from the heat and arousal I had been longing for ever since she had left my room after our last make-out session the day before, that I almost didn't hear the footsteps coming up the stairs until the person making them let out a shrill laugh.

Rachel.

I didn't even consciously push her off me. It was a long trained reflex. But before either of us had time to think about it, we were both on either sides of the bed, standing upright and fixing our hair. It was a routine we had picked up when getting close to being caught, which happened frequently at parties.

Britt had just walked around the bed beside me, when the door was opened and Rachel stood in the doorframe, looking slightly frazzled at the sight of us. Or maybe it was because Finn was hanging on to her with his hands snaked around her waist from behind. The four of us exchanged silent looks before Brittany and I rushed passed them, Britt giggling: "Don't forget to were an umbrella!"

Finn looked confused as Rachel blushed deeply and I shook my head amused "It's raincoat, Britt."I whispered, linking pinkies with the blonde beside me, whose lips formed a silent 'oh' in acknowledgement of my correction.

As we got down the stairs and moved into better light, I couldn't help but smirk.

"Now we're even." I grinned at Brittany, before I kissed her cheek and hurried down the hall towards where I heard the others laughing. Glancing back, I saw Brittany furrow her brows.

My smirk broadened. I didn't even care if the others saw, as I was pretty sure none of them would remember it in the morning. I had to get her back for earlier.

Tomorrow at the latest Brittany would discover it.

The deep purple hickey shining on her neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Let me know what you think.


	6. Drunken Thoughts And Nightly Cab Rides

**Chapter 6 - Drunken Thoughts And Nightly Cab Rides  
**

 

It was getting late. No, actually it was getting early.

I looked around the room wearily from where I was slumped down on the couch, Brittany's head on my lap and Quinn's on my right shoulder, my eyes burning from being so tired.

Since Kurt, Blaine and Rory, supporting a beyond wasted Sugar, had left some time ago, there were only a few of us left in the living room.

Mercedes was sort of dancing with Sam, which, instead of finding annoying like I had done with Kurt and Blaine just a few hours ago, I actually smiled upon. They _were_ really cute together. And maybe the fact that I had Brittany snuggling into my lap and my hand gently stroking through her hair made it easier not to get jealous at what others could so openly have.

Because I had realized that that was what had been bugging me before. Jealousy.

I was jealous at how everybody else had it so easy, and I was annoyed by how they still complained about their difficult love-lives all the time.

They had no idea what it was like for me. No idea. How hard it was. Being in love with someone you couldn't allow yourself to love.

The alcohol was clearly bringing down my walls, even the ones I had built around my heart so not even my own thoughts could get a look at it, and I felt so vulnerable. More vulnerable than I would if I were sitting here completely naked instead of in my bra, even though nobody could even hear what I was thinking.

It was like my own thoughts were invading my head and there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing I could do to stop them from yelling the truth at me. _Sniff._

I felt the tears well up again and quickly bowed my head towards my right hand, which was a bit immobile because of Quinn's weight against my side, and swiped them away.

I didn't wanna cry again. It was exhausting and sort of embarrassing the next day, when everybody asked me if I was okay.

So I just resumed checking who was still in the room with us.

Behind Sam and Mercedes, in two chairs across the room, Teen Jesus and Mike were apparently discussing something of great profoundness or whatever, since Mike was gesticulating wildly and Teen Jesus was wrinkling his forehead in concentration and nodding along with his rant looking at the floor. Tina was sat to her boyfriend's feet, her head resting on his knees and a drunken smile on her lips.

A few feet to their right, Artie was balancing dangerously on the back wheels of his wheelchair, his eyes closed behind his slightly askew sitting glasses, and his head bobbing to the groovy music, which was still quietly playing in the background.

I craned my neck to see if someone was standing behind the couch I was sitting on with Britt and Quinn and noticed Puck leaning against the doorframe, a bottle of beer in his hands and a creepy look on his face. He was… he was…looking content or something. _Weirdo_.

Finn and Rachel had apparently never come back from upstairs as I didn't see or hear them anywhere. _Eew. I hope they're just sleeping._

A loud bang made my heart jump and Brittany and Quinn stir against me. Artie had fallen backwards with his wheelchair and was now sprawled across the floor, his legs in the air as he was still stuck in the chair.

He looked like a bug that couldn't get on his feet again, just limbs flailing around like crazy. Well, at least his arms were, and his eyes were wide in shock.

I giggled softly, while Mercedes broke into laughter and Teen Jesus jumped over to help him back up. I saw him say something to Artie, to which Artie nodded in response and guessed he had asked if he was okay or something like that. He didn't look too hurt, so I turned away again and continued stroking through Britt's hair. Brittany sighed happily and it made me smile.

Fortunately the noise hadn't fully woken her and after fidgeting a little to get comfy again she seemed to be sound asleep again.

Quinn on the other hand was restless against my shoulder and after a few seconds of groaningly repositioning her head over and over, she slowly sat up straight and took a deep breath.

But taking in a really deep breath when you're as drunk she was is never helpful. She grimaced and put a hand in front of her mouth.

"Whow! Hey, I'm warning you! If you puke on me or Britt I'm gonna kill you!" I whispered quickly in order not to wake the other blonde in my lap, but all the while, put a supporting hand against her back and looked at her with worry.

I know Quinn and I didn't really get along most of the time. Especially lately. But I had really liked how close we had been just now, with her head resting peacefully against my side. It had felt like back when we were kids, after she had fallen asleep during one of our movie-nights.

She would always rest her head against my shoulder like that and sometimes even hold my hand because I had made her watch a scary movie with me. I used to tell her that she was being silly and that I wasn't scared at all, but that she could hold my hand if she wanted to, when in reality I had been just as scared by the movie. But I had always wanted to see and do stuff I wasn't allowed, I just didn't wanna be scared alone, so I had made her watch with me. And she always did.

She had been my best friend back then. My only friend really…until I met Brittany in middle school. I know that from then on I had neglected Quinn. I would only do stuff with Brittany and her together or just with Brittany anymore. It had almost never been just the two of us ever again and after a while she had pulled away for good. Or maybe I had. The thing is…I really missed her from time to time.

Sure, we still hung out and appeared like we were sort of close. But it was nothing compared to what we had had back then. Sometimes I wondered if we would ever have that again. _I hope so…_

I was rubbing light, calming circles on Quinn's back. She had her head buried in her hands and was slightly hunched over with her elbows on her knees. She looked tired.

"You okay? Wanna share a cab ride home? You can sleep at my house too, if you want." I said in a low voice. I knew her parents didn't approve of her staying out so late or coming home drunk. But weirdly enough they didn't mind her staying at a friend's house as long as it wasn't a boy. I guess they figured she wasn't their responsibility then. I didn't like her parents that much. They didn't really seem to care for her.

I think she was a bit surprised at the sentiment, because she didn't answer right away. Or maybe she was just more wasted then I thought. Either way, it took a few seconds before I saw her nod her head.

"Okay good." I murmured. "We should probably head out soon anyway, or else I'mma have to carry this one." I jerked my head towards Brittany, which was totally unnecessary as Quinn's hands still pressed into her eyes.

"Kay." She croaked weekly and I sat up a bit and started cautiously shaking Brittany awake by her left shoulder. She moaned and nestled her head into my thighs.

"Britt-Britt. Come on, wake up. We gotta go home." I spoke towards her ear, leaning down a bit so she would hear me.

"Nnnnh…" she murmured and shook her head the tiniest bit.

I grinned. _She is so cute when she's sleepy. Cute and cuddly. I wish we didn't have to move._

"Come on. Or do you want me to tickle you awake." At this her head jerked up and she protested even louder.

I was starting to tickle her, but she just squealed and turned around really fast, so that now, she was hugging around my middle and squeezing me real tight.

"Hff…Britt! You're squeezing too tight." I heard a muffled giggle coming from below and felt it vibrate against my stomach. It sent chills down my spine.

"Sorry." She turned her head and sleepily blinked up at me, loosening her grip somewhat but not fully releasing me.

I smiled down at her. "S'okay. But I think Quinn really wants to go now." I said, eyeing Quinn, who was still hunched over but now swaying a little.

Brittany finally untangled herself from my body and sat up to my left side. She looked over at Quinn and then looked at me and nodded understandingly.

She stood up and went over to Quinn, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"You okay to go, Q?" She asked sweetly, going down to her knees and looking up at the girl's face from below. _She is so loving and caring to everybody._ I felt something twitch in my chest but pushed it away. I had to get us home.

"Mhmm" Quinn nodded and yawned. Brittany stood back up again and helped Quinn to her feet. She was a bit unsteady but didn't seem to be too nauseous, which I was grateful for. I was pretty good at not puking from alcohol, unless I heard or saw someone else throw up.

We walked around the couch, Britt supporting Quinn by the waist and me going behind them, and made it to the front door. Puckerman had vanished from the doorframe. When I was about to pull out my cell, Brittany suddenly turned around and murmured "Shirt! Sanny, my shirt!"

"Oh yeah." I went back to the living room to look for both of our shirts, and found them hanging over the TV. As I turned around to walk back to the front door I heard someone say my name.

I looked around and saw Tina and Mercedes sitting by Mike's feet, waving and calling goodbye. Mike, too, gave a little wave and Teen Jesus smiled and nodded.

I furrowed my brow in confusion and was about to drop a bitchy comment, but I stopped.

_They're being sweet, Santana. – But why? – Does it matter? - They're being weird. - Brittany's weird – But Brittany's the good kinda weird. – Whatever, just play nice._

I stiffly returned the smile and threw my hand up in a goodbye, before I left the room and joined Brittany in her attempt to stop Quinn from turning around and looking for a jacket she hadn't even worn when she came here.

After a few seconds' struggle I managed to convince her she hadn't brought a jacket, while Brittany called us a cab.

She told me they had said they'd be here in five minutes, so I went to the kitchen to get us some bottled water and a bag or two for the ride.

A few minutes later I scooted onto the backseat after Quinn, and Brittany got in from the other side.

I told the driver my address and he took off into the night.

During the ten minute long drive I kept my gaze out the window and just listened to Brittany who had quietly started to hum some calming melody. Quinn had leaned her head onto Brittany's shoulder and I felt strangely alone but at the same time not alone at all as I recognized the melody Brittany was humming.

It was 'You've got a Friend' by Carole King.

I had sung that song to Brittany once when she had asked me to sing for her when she was sick. She had asked me to sing a song we could make our song.

I had wanted to sing 'Songbird' to her.

I had sung that one instead.

She loved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another one! Because I didn't post as often as I promised the past few days.


	7. The Porch

**Chapter 7 - The Porch  
**

 

When we turned into my street, I blindly rummaged in my small purse to find the money to pay the cap driver. I didn't find it right away though and when we got to my house the driver stopped the car and looked expectantly at me in the rearview mirror.

I felt myself getting annoyed at the impatience he was showing. _He should be thankful none of us puked. Loser._

I let out a frustrated grunt and after a few seconds I just pulled my searching hand out of the tiny purse. I looked at the things in my hand. _Lipstick, tiny fragrance bottle, my keys, Britt's keys, a small, folded age-worn note and a 20 dollar bill._

I handed him the money and he put it in his ugly, brown wallet that was already lying open and waiting on his lap. He made no move to give me my two dollar change.

"Um, don't you think you forgot something?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

He smiled coldly and tapped on the taximeter. It said `20'.

 _That asshole left it_ running _while I looked for_ his _fucking money? Are you kidding me?_

"Are you fucking serious? You don't think I'll just – "

"Sanny" I felt a hand on my left arm. I looked over at Brittany, who had Quinn tucked under her right arm and was looking at me with tired eyes.

"Fine!" I hissed and pushed open my door. I went around the back of the car and helped Brittany get Quinn out, who seemed to be too tired to stand on her own again.

I would have loved to bang the door shut as forcefully as I could but I didn't want my neighbors to complain to my parents again when they got home. So instead I closed the door carefully and opted to show the ass of a driver the finger when he drove away with a mocking 'thank you'.

We had to almost drag Quinn to my front door, where I sat her down so Britt wouldn't have to hold her up while I unlocked the door for us, because she was still pretty out of it, even with the cold night air.

It's not like Britt wasn't strong enough to hold Quinn up on her own – hell, Britt was so strong she could have probably lifted any one of us and carried them for miles – but I thought she must be really tired and I didn't want her to have an aching back in the morning.

I fumbled with the keys for a little while before I realized they were Britt's. When I finally got the door unlocked Britt had sat down next to Quinn on the porch. She really looked tired.

"Hey Britt, I got it. Come on, let's get her inside." I said gently, crouching down beside her and stroking her shoulder. She let out a content hum and leaned back into me. My balance tumbled under her weight and I fell back so I was sitting behind her.

"Just a little bit, Sanny, please. Let's just sit out here for a little bit longer." She whispered and I noticed her eyes were closed when I shifted closer to her and looked at her from the side.

I smiled. She looked so peaceful in the moonlight. So beautiful.

"Okay Britt-Britt. Whatever you want." I cooed quietly and scooted closer to her, snaking my legs around her so her body was situated between them. She let herself fall back against me and sighed happily.

I draped my arms under hers and joined them over her taut stomach.

She smiled again and put her hands over mine. "This is nice." She yawned as she intertwined our fingers as best as she could.

"Yeah" I sighed and laid my head on her left shoulder, so I was looking over at Quinn.

The honey-blonde was sitting to our left, her head resting against the corner post of the banister. She was breathing evenly and looked fast asleep.

I wondered if she was okay. She hadn't been her strong, confident self lately and I was starting to get worried. Maybe she was thinking about Beth. If I remembered correctly, her birthday was coming up.

I filed those thoughts away and made a plan to ask her about it in the morning and to be nice about it for once. Quinn really didn't need any of my usual crab right now.

Even if she knew I didn't mean it. We never meant. The others didn't get that, but the two of us knew we loved each other. At least we used to. _I hope she still knows. I hope she knows I love her._

I sighed quietly and turned my head to snuggle into Britt's neck. She smelled so good. I took a deep breath and tried to take it all in, so I could remember it forever.

Her smell, the way her body felt against mine, the calming fire that burned on my hands as she traced lazy patterns across them with her thumbs, the light tickle of her hair against my face and shoulder.

I never wanted to forget that. I never wanted to forget _her_.

I was relieved she was pressed so tightly against me, because I felt a little dizzy. I guess I was still pretty drunk and I was glad I had something to hold onto.

I listened for any sign of movement from Quinn and when I only heard her calm breathing I slipped my right hand out from under Britt's and used it to stroke away her beautiful blonde hair from my face and her neck.

As my fingers brushed against her skin I saw goose bumps erupt where I touched her. I felt her body tense in anticipation and grinned. Slowly I traced my right hand back over her back and shoulder, down her right arm and up again. She shivered against me.

"Mmmh… San" she mumbled and at the sound of her voice I couldn't hold back any longer. I placed a light kiss on her neck, just beneath the hairline and dragged the fingernails of my right hand down her side. She shivered again and I heard her draw in a sharp breath.

I kissed the same spot over and over and Brittany turned her head away from me so I had better access to continue my assault on her neck.

Her skin felt warm and soft against my lips and I started nibbling on her pulse point below her ear. I knew she loved that and the confirmation came immediately as Brittany arched her back slightly and let out a shaking breath.

Feeling her body react this strongly to my comparably tame motions, I couldn't hold back a sigh of my own and felt my hands start kneading her hips and thighs of their own accord.

She shifted in front of me and before I could even open my eyes I felt her lips against mine. I moaned at the sudden contact and drew my hands up to cup her face, stroking her soft cheeks with my thumbs.

In that moment I just didn't care. I didn't care if Quinn was really asleep or not and I didn't care if the neighbors might see and I didn't care that I was far too drunk to know that I really _should_ care about all those things

She was now kneeling upright between my legs on the porch step just below the one I was sitting on, which meant that she was still a little bit taller than me like it was when we were standing. I liked our height difference. I didn't know why, I just knew it felt right somehow.

She kissed me deeply, her hands roaming over my back and I felt so light. Like I was just about to float away or something. Just then her tongue brushed over my lips and I hungrily parted them, wanting nothing more than to feel her tongue dancing with mine.

She was aggressive and forceful and it took my breath away. I felt my whole body tingle as she pressed herself impossibly closer to me and moaned into my mouth. Her body was now flush against mine and I felt myself get wet as she rolled her body into me, her pubic bone pressing against my center.

"Mmh! Britt" I sighed. Turning my head away, so I could give my oxygen deprived brain some relieve. She just hummed and started sucking on my neck. I pressed myself into her and grabbed her shoulder blades for support.

My mind was so foggy, I didn't notice anything around us until I saw some movement in the corner of my eye. I turned to look what it was and froze.

For the tiniest second I thought I saw Quinn's eyes staring right at us, but in the blink of an eye she seemed asleep again. But suddenly I cared again.

The shock was there and Brittany must have felt me tense against her, because she stopped kissing and nibbling my neck and turned to look at me instead.

"What's wrong?" she asked huskily, her piercing blue eyes searching mine.

"Nothing" I croaked and after clearing my throat – and my head – I added: "I think we should go inside."

I didn't wait for her reply and stood up without looking at her. I glanced at Quinn and felt a cold shiver run down my spine. It wasn't a good shiver like it had been just a minute ago.

_Is she sitting differently? Oh my god, she moved. She's awake! She saw everything and now she's gonna tell everybody I'm a – No. Calm the fuck down. Everybody moves in their sleep. Hell, Britt even accidentally kicked you out of bed once. Just act like nothing happened._

While I had been struggling with my own thoughts again, Brittany had crawled over to where Quinn was leaning against the post and was now gently shaking her shoulder.

"Quinn. Quinn, wake up. Santana says we're going inside."

I flinched at her words. 'Santana says'. She had stated it as if it were the most natural thing… that I decided for the both of us. And she didn't even question it.

_I'm a horrible person! She must be so confused. It must seem like I play her hot and cold. Like I don't even care. I'm so bossy. I can't always tell her what to do. She doesn't deserve this._

"Britt, I just think it's getting cold … you know? Just… maybe we should go inside?" I eyed her nervously, but she didn't seem to have heard me. At least I thought so, because she didn't respond right away.

Only when she had managed to help Quinn up, did she turn to me and look me straight into the eyes. I gulped when I saw the emotions there.

"I know" she whispered. "I know."

For a second neither of us moved. Then Quinn groaned sleepily and I hurried to open the door for them.

As Britt moved passed me she smiled at me sadly and my heart ached so bad.

* * *

I couldn't sleep.

I was lying on my back on the far right side of my bed with my hands joined on my stomach. Britt was already asleep next to me, her head so close to mine that I felt her breath hit my cheek in even waves. Her right arm snaked securely over my waist.

We had managed to get Quinn to wake up a little and put on a sleep shirt and some shorts I had handed her.

While Britt and I had silently brushed our teeth in the bathroom she had crawled into bed and immediately fallen back asleep, so when we had come back into my room, Britt and I had gotten in on the other side of the bed.

The three of us had slept in my bed on various occasions before, so we were used to the arrangements. Since it was my bed I had a specific side I always slept on. Quinn had known as much when the three of us had shared the bed the first time, when we were eleven.

What she hadn't known was that Britt also had had _her_ side in my bed. That we had _our_ sides, and that it was more like _our_ bed anyway, even back then. But it hadn't mattered, since Britt hadn't insisted on sleeping on _her_ side. Or maybe she had. I guess it depended on what was considered her side. The left side of my bed, or just the place next to me.

Back then I hadn't even thought about it. To me it had been clear that Britt would be sleeping next to me. And since I liked to sleep near the edge of the bed, that had meant that Quinn would be sleeping on the other side of the bed.

But now everything was different.

Britt still slept next to me, but now I wondered.

I wondered if Quinn had been sad back then. Sad that Britt had apparently replaced her so easily as the one who was always by my side. I wondered if Quinn had thought it meant that I didn't like her as much anymore. That I had chosen Brittany over her.

The thing is, I hadn't. I had never _chosen_ Brittany.

We had just met and that had been it. From then on it had just _been_ her. With everything.

I wondered if it was the same for Brittany. Did she feel the same way? Was I _it_ for her?

_Probably not. Britt loves a lot of people the same. She just does. She smiles at them and is nice to them. She's not like me._

These thoughts frustrated me and I let out a quiet sigh. Brittany stirred a little and snuggled even closer, draping her leg over both of mine just like her arm laid over my waist.

I closed my eyes and just felt her. The soothing slow pace of her breathing and the faint smell of her skin calmed me and before I knew it, sleep had claimed me as well.

* * *

"Uugh" I heard someone groan.

Slowly I became aware of my surroundings. I felt my soft mattress beneath me and something warm pressed against my back. And I felt pain.

My head was throbbing and my eyes felt like they were being stabbed by lasers.

"Oh god, I think I'm gonna be sick" I heard the voice moan again and this time I could tell it was Quinn's, just as I felt the mattress shift slightly beneath me.

I turned my head slowly and carefully blinked in the direction Quinn's voice had just come from. However in the second it took my eyes to adjust to the bright light that was streaming in from my window, I heard a door open and when I could finally see properly, Quinn had already vanished into my bathroom.

I looked down over my shoulder and saw a mess of blond hair sprawled over the pillow Britt and I had apparently been sharing. She was still fast asleep and it took me a second to realize what was going on.

_Riiight. Rachel's party. I guess it didn't suck after all. Oh man, that's one nasty headache. But why is Quinn here?_

I tried to recount what all had happened last night and was shocked to remember pretty much everything. Shocked because…

_Holy fucking shit! Did I really make out with Britt on the porch last night? IN FRONT OF QUINN? Have I really gone insane now? Oh my god, and I totally had the strangest thoughts ever about Brittany. Was I really jealous of "Klaine"? Pleeease let me forget that again. Oh fuck! And I planted a hickey on her too! Shit! Everbody saw us go up there! Oh my god! RACHEL AND FINN saw! And I think they had sex…eeew. Whow…getting sidetracked! Bigger picture, Santana. Can you still see it?_

I jerked around again and hastily, but carefully brushed Britt's hair away from her neck. It was faint, but it was there. A small hickey.

I relaxed a bit and laid back down on my back. _Well, I guess that won't be too hard to cover up._

Britt stirred against me and mumbled something in her sleep. _Cute. …Wait, what? Oh, don't you start that again!_

I slightly shook my head, when I heard Quinn's muffled groan from the bathroom.

Gently I pulled Brittany's arm that was embracing me, away from my middle and got up slowly.

"Quinn? Are you okay?" I whispered when I got to the bathroom and poked my head in.

Quinn was sitting in front of the toilette, her arms on the seat and her head buried in them. She groaned again.

_Poor Quinn. If I have a headache like this, I don't wanna know how she's feeling._

"Aaw, honey!" I surprised myself by saying and quickly added "guess someone doesn't know how to hold their liquor!"

Despite my snarky added comment I felt extremely bad for her and knelt down next to her, stroking light circles on her back.

She slowly turned her head in her arms and croaked out in the most pathetic voice I had ever heard.

"I'm dying!"

I pouted my lip out in sympathy and stroked some of her hair out of her face and behind her ear. She really looked awful.

I just couldn't hold back: "Aaaw! You look it too, sweety" I grinned and barely had to move to avoid her weak attempt at swatting me on the arm. That small movement however took it out of her and she turned impossibly paler and jerked her head back over the toilette.

* * *

For the next hour I helped Quinn get most of the toxins from last night out of her body until she finally regained some color to her face and said she felt it was safe to move back to my room.

When we got back to my room Brittany was just waking up and stretching and after sharing some 'good mornings and 'how are you feelings' we went down stairs to drink some coffee in my case, some water in Quinn's, and eat 3 pancakes and some hot chocolate I made in Brittany's. I swear, that girl is _The_ Party queen. Hands down.

After we each had had our breakfast Quinn said she better go home so her parents don't freak out and we agreed to meet up later at the mall for some 'after party girls' day out' to reboot and retell what we remembered of the party. I had felt it was smarter to act as if my memory of last night was foggy at best.

So after we walked Quinn home, Britt and I took the bus to Finn's house to get my car.

When we got there we were surprised to see, that Mike's and Sam's cars were still there as well.

Seeing Sam's car made me realize that we had forgotten to take Mercedes home the night before and I wondered how she had gotten back to her parents' house after we had left.

Britt wanted to go in and say hi, but I convinced her that they'd probably still be all asleep and so we got into the car and drove to hers to get some new clothes for the both of us and maybe shower and sleep another round before we'd meet up with Quinn at the mall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright everybody, I've been AWOL and I'm sorry! No good excuses. Instead, how about I just upload not one, not two...but six more chapters??  
> Sound good?  
> Awesome!


	8. Those Lazy Days

**Chapter 8 - Those Lazy Days  
**

 

„Ugh! I think my head's gonna explode! How are you _not_ hung over? You drank like five shots more than me. At least!" I groaned, gratefully slumping down onto Brittany's bed.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm Chinese." Britt replied, while walking over to her closet to get us some new clothes.

"What?" I lifted my head up from the mattress to look at her.

"You know how Chinese people can digest alcohol really well. Oh no wait, that's not right!" she wrinkled her forehead in confusion and held the t-shirt she had just pulled out loosely in her hands, looking up, thinking.

My stomach flipped. But it wasn't from the hangover.

_Aaaw, she's so cute!_

"Ooh! I got it!" she hopped a little and her voice was bright. "Chinese people are really _bad_ at drinking alcohol. They're like super-sensitive to it and get drunk like really quick, right? So maybe _you're_ Chinese." She whipped her head around to see what I thought of her epiphany.

I was still watching her and grinned at that statement.

"But Britt, you know I'm not Chinese." I smiled as I laid my head back down onto the bed carefully, covering my eyes with the crook of my elbow because the bright light in the room was starting to hurt my eyes.

"Oh. Right." She sounded a bit disappointed and I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't chuckle at the pout I could literally _hear_ her wearing.

"Besides, Tina and Mike don't get drunk any faster than Rachel or Mercedes." I added into my arm. After thinking for a second and recalling the few party memories I had with Rachel and the others I added,

"Actually, I think nobody gets drunk as fast as Rachel. I only saw her drink, like, two wine coolers before she was hanging onto Finn's neck, begging him to let her practice her Tony speech on him again." I thought aloud.

_I would have sooooo killed her! I don't know how he does it! She's so annoying! I mean, like, REALLY annoying…Brittany's never annoying…_

"Huh?" Brittany's voice came somewhat muffled. I looked up again, propping myself up on my elbows, and only saw one of her legs peak out of the closet, balancing her out as she reached for something that must have been on the board on the top of the closet.

"I was just saying that Tina and Mike don't get drunk faster than any of us though, so…" I repeated a little louder so she could hear me this time.

I thought about going over to help her get whatever she wanted down from the board but then I remembered that I wouldn't be much of a help since I was considerably smaller than her anyway.

Her head poked around the closet doorway. "Tina and Mike are Chinese?" she asked interested.

"Um…I think so, I don't know." My brow furrowed. _How can I not know about that?_

"Well, they're Asian. Same difference." I shrugged, slightly shocked and annoyed at myself for not knowing where the two Glee clubbers came from, and shifted so I was sitting up.

I mean, it wasn't like they were my best friends or anything, but I should still be able to tell where they're from.

_Just like I can tell that Manhands is really from Israel._

I snorted at my private joke.

"Hmm. Maybe they're not! Maybe they just _say_ they are as a prank." She wondered excitedly.

"I don't think so, Britt. I'm pretty sure they're really Asian." I yawned, scooting back on her bed and resting against the headboard.

Brittany shrugged and smirked "I know. I was just taking the Mickey out of you!" she giggled playfully in her best British accent, and returned to search through the closet for some pants.

I laughed at the phrase. She had picked it up the last time we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire and had loved it because it reminded her of Mickey Mouse. Since then she was always waiting for an opportunity to use it. Even if she had to create one herself like she obviously had done now.

I closed my eyes and yawned again, crossing my stretched legs at the ankles.

 _God, I'm so fucking tired. Why did Quinn have to puke so freakin'_ early _?_

After a few seconds – or minutes, I wasn't sure, I might have dozed off – I felt the mattress shift under me and before I could open my eyes I felt something brush against my cheek.

I twitched a little and heard a small chuckle directly at my ear.

In the blink of an eye I was wide awake and painfully aware of Brittany's hands on either side of my hips, holding her up, and her mouth at my left ear, her hot breath hitting me in even waves, making the little hairs at the back of my neck stand up and giving me goose bumps all over.

"You wanna take that shower now or are you too sleepy?" she whispered seductively and I felt my breath catch in my throat.

I pressed my eyes even more closed so I could concentrate on her voice and on the feeling of her body hovering so close to mine.

 _Holy hell! How does she do that? I was peacefully napping just a second ago and now I want to rip her clothes off! Or, even better, have her rip_ my _clothes off!_

I felt my breathing go ridiculously fast and shifted a little between her and the headboard to recompose myself. It didn't work.

"Well?" she flirted, this time nipping at my earlobe.

A tiny gasp escaped my lips and I pressed my legs even tighter together, feeling the heat rise in my body and shoot to my centre.

My eyes shot open and I gulped. "Y-yeah. Let's take that shower." I had wanted that to sound sexy and seductive, but it came out shaky and desperate. _Damn it! I'm so lame!_

She chuckled against my cheek again and started a trail of kisses down my neck, while her left hand came to rest on my thigh and squeezed it lightly.

I hummed at the feeling of her lips against my neck and leaned into her as my hands wandered to her wrists and up her arms slowly.

She kissed back up the same trail and then darted out her tongue and licked over my jaw until she reached my lips.

_Oh god!_

She kissed me gently, slowly, and withdrew before I could even really comprehend the flying sensation in my stomach or react to the tingling in my lips.

I was so turned on by now that I couldn't hold back any longer. I leaned into her even more, grabbing the back of her neck with both hands, and recaptured her mouth with mine, impatiently sucking at her bottom lip to deepen the kiss.

She sighed into the kiss and parted her lips longingly, allowing me to immediately dart my tongue in, which she met with hers just as hungrily.

Her hand had travelled up and down my thigh and was now pushing at my knee as she crawled on top of me, her right hand in my hair, grabbing it fiercely.

I couldn't breathe.

Not only because her mouth kept mine wonderfully busy, but also because this feeling had started building in my stomach again.

Or was it my chest?

I couldn't really describe it.

It was like when you missed a step going down a flight of stairs, combined with, like, when you're standing in front of a class and you're really nervous because you have to give a talk and didn't prepare, combined with the way you're heart races when you wake up after having an intense dream and for one second you don't know what was the dream and what was reality.

_Oh please, don't let this be a dream!_

Her lips detached from my quivering ones and I immediately felt like I should be hyperventilating as the slight pressure was taken away, but I didn't.

My breath was pretty shaky though.

Since my eyes were still shut tightly I didn't see where she directed her attention next, so when, a second later, I heard her giggle ring across the room I was beyond confused.

I opened my eyes quickly, only to see her leaning against the frame of the bedroom door. She was smirking at me. No, actually her smirk transformed into a warm smile.

_What the hell? What just happened? She – she was just right here! How did she get over there so freakin' fast? I'm losing it!_

"You okay?" she asked, still smiling at me. And it wasn't in a cocky, flirtatious way. It was genuine.

_No! You're fucking making me lose bits of time! I'm not fucking okay!_

I drew in a steadying breath and composed myself, looking away from her as I stood up to do so.

"Yeeeah. Are you?" I replied in a teasing tone, hastily placing a smirk of my own on my face before I swiveled around. But as I saw her face again I just got the last glimpse of the warm smile fading from her expression to be replaced by a regretting, worried one before going over to a matching smirk. Which I now knew was fake.

"Oh, I will be. As soon as we turn on that hot water." With that she turned around and vanished in the hall.

I let my head fall back and let out the tiniest groan.

 _Why are you making everything so goddamn complicated! Why can't you be like Quinn and just be my annoying friend, or like Rachel and just be annoying? Why do you have to be_ Brittany? _My best friend who only needs to give me a look to let me know that you know stuff I don't. Only a look to let me know I'm screwing up again._

_But screwing up what? Ugh! This is so frustrating! Why can't things be hot and perfect but easy and not confusing at the same time? I hate this!_

I shook my head as I sighed and followed Brittany into the bathroom.

* * *

Half an hour later I was returning to Brittany's bedroom wrapped up in a towel.

She was already dressed and was sitting at her vanity table, applying eyeliner to her left eye.

I had had a sudden nervous flash and told Brittany I had to call Quinn to confirm the time and to ask her some other stuff about our English assignment or something. I really hadn't put too much thought into the lie. I just knew I didn't wanna freak out on her and that anything we would have done in that shower together would have made me do so right now.

She hadn't thought anything of it, or at least if she had, she had been pretty good at playing it cool – but then again, I knew she was awesome at that.

Anyway, while she had showered I had calmed myself down from whatever freaky trip I had been on and – after convincing myself I was just very hung-over – I had actually called Quinn to set up a time and place to meet and then laid out some clothes for me and Brittany to wear since we hadn't quite come around to that earlier. I'd also played a round of Angry Birds on Brittany's phone, but I think that only riled me up again.

"Hey, so I was thinking we should check out that new comic-book-store that opened up last week and maybe find something to get for Sam's birthday." Brittany said, looking at me in the mirror.

I was relieved to see that she seemed normal again.

 _Well,_ she _wasn't the one who was acting weird! – Ugh, whatever._

"Umm, yeah! We should totally do that. You and Quinn are gonna have to find something for him though." I said, making my way over to the bed to pick up the clothes I had forgotten to bring to the bathroom.

I smirked when I saw that she had apparently not approved of my choice of wardrobe. The simple black top I had laid out for myself had been replaced by a light purple tunic with a washed out print of a fluffy, happy baby bird on it to go with my dark grey leggings.

I held it up to my body and silently raised a questioning eyebrow at her reflection.

She glanced away from her own eyes to mine again and just nodded, smiling.

I let out something between a breath and a chuckle and turned away from her to get dressed.

Not that I minded her seeing me naked, how could I with all the things we were doing, but it had to be in the right atmosphere.

And in the middle of her room, in broad daylight and without any sexual context it just seemed too hippie or 'the l word'-y or whatever and I wanted to be neither, so I turned around.

"Why?" she asked and as I couldn't remember the question I twisted my body so I could look at her questioningly over my shoulder while still shielding my now naked upper body from her view.

"Hm?" I hummed, pulling the shirt over my arms.

"Why would Quinn and I have to find Sam a present? _You're_ the one who dated him." She clarified matter-of-factly, looking at herself in the mirror to see if she had done a good job on her mascara.

"First of all, Quinn dated him too, let's not forget that! They were, like, engaged or promised or whatever with that whacko ring he got her, and second, whenever he started doing his impressions or rambling on and on about some comic I either shut him up by making out or just pretended to listen." I replied, pulling down the shirt over my body and putting on my new thong and leggings.

After a second I added, "You know what? Actually scratch that. I didn't even bother to pretend, I usually texted you during those 'conversations'." _Or rather_ sexted _you._

"So? What do ya think?" I asked, twirling around and showing off the outfit.

Brittany had obviously turned around somewhere during my answer and was staring at me.

"It looks nice." She smiled. "Like, really cute and happy."

I smiled back at her.

"Whatever. Scoot over. I gotz to fix up ma grill!" I grinned, walking over to her and lightly pushing against her shoulder so she would stand up and let me sit down at her vanity.

She stuck out her tongue at me and jumped up.

Ten minutes later we were ready to go.


	9. Malls And Melodrama

**Chapter 9 - Malls And Melodrama  
**

 

„Oh, _come_ ooon!" I cried out as the stupid fat lady in her annoying little red Mini swerved into the parking spot right in front of me. _My_ parking spot.

"Ugh!" I hammered my fists on the steering wheel in frustration and leaned my head back, closing my eyes for a second before sitting up straight and clenching my jaw.

"Okay. Brittz, the next fucking spot you see, you yell. Got it?" I ordered her as I brought the car back onto the parking lot lane to go spot-hunting once more.

"Alright," she chirped happily – which still threw me every time.

 _How the hell is she_ not _pissed off right now?_

"What should I yell?" she asked enthusiastically. I eyed her for a brief second and saw that she had leaned against the window and was looking at me sweetly.

"What? I don't care! Just…yell whatever you want." I hissed.

I didn't mean to go at her, of all people, but I was getting _really_ frustrated and angry and tired of driving around in circles.

"God! What are all these people _doing_ here? It's just the Lima Mall, for crying out lo-"

" _Oooh! Ooooh! Cupcake! CUPCAKE!"_ I jumped in my seat at Brittany'sloud shout.

" _What?_ What do yo- oh!" I followed her outstretched arm that was pointing to something in front of the car. " _OH! That's mine!_ That's fucking mine, grandpa! _Back off!"_ I screamed as I got what Brittany had meant and raced toward the empty parking space three spots ahead of us to the right.

I have no idea how I didn't tip the car over, the way I drove us into that spot, but in a matter of seconds the car stood safe and sound in the parking space and I was unbuckling my seatbelt.

"Ha!" I exclaimed triumphantly, looking over at Brittany, who had grabbed the little handle above the window to hold on to during my brave maneuver, as I retrieved my purse from the back seat.

She was slightly frowning at me though.

"What?" I asked confused. "I got the spot you saw, right?"

"Sanny! You totally scared that cute old abuelo over there!" she scolded me with a serious expression, pointing out of the back of the car without looking.

Brittany loved saying stuff in Spanish. And hearing it. She always asked me to speak Spanish and teach her stuff, so I wasn't surprised she had said 'abuelo' instead of 'grandpa'.

"What?" I repeated as I looked over my shoulder and saw the elderly man in the Range Rover show me the finger as he drove past.

I snorted. "I think he's gonna be fine, Britt." I said in a sarcastic tone.

She was still frowning a bit so I sighed and took her hand.

"Look, I'm sure he'll find another parking spot, okay? Now, come on, I really wanna get myself some coffee. And a muffin for you." I smirked as that reflexively let her eyes light up. "Besides, we're late and Quinn's probably gonna give us an earful about it, so come on. Pleeease?" I pleaded, pouting out my lower lip and looking at her with my best puppy dog eyes.

Normally I _never_ pleaded. _Ever._ With _anyone_.

But with Brittany I knew she wouldn't hold it against me later or tease me for it – not in a bad way anyway – or consider me weak or anything because of it. So I didn't mind sometimes just pouting a bit and batting my eyelashes to get her to do stuff.

Cause the only other way I knew how to get people to do stuff was by scaring the shit out of them or scheming and I would never do that to her. So yeah, this way was better, besides…it was like a fucking reflex or something. You couldn't help but be cute and protective with her, even if the person you were protecting her against was yourself.

_Ugh, I swear… I'm such a marshmallow. But whatever. It works and she thinks it's adorable._

I practically _saw_ her annoyance with me crumble away as she smiled down at her lap where my hands were holding one of hers.

I felt the weird, panicky urge to jerk my hands away from hers.

 _It's not like we're holding hands! I'm just consoling a friend. Well, not consoling, but, you know… anyway…it's_ not _holding hands._

"Yeah, alright." She gave in and then apparently thought of something as her head shot up and her face lit up.

"Ooh! Could I get a cupcake instead?" she squealed, now hopping up and down in her seat excitedly.

I chuckled and smiled at her. "Sure. I'll even pay, alright? But to do that, we're gonna have to leave the car at some point, Britt-Britt." I grinned.

"Yay. Okay, come on then!" she yelled, clapping her hands before jumping out of the car. "Sahaan! _Hurry_ _up_!" I heard her voice move around the car.

I laughed loudly and got out of the car too, behind which Brittany was already tapping her fingers impatiently against her own thigh, gesturing me to go faster with her other hand and bouncing up and down a little.

"Alright, alright! Geez! Keep your knickers on!" I smirked as she grabbed my wrist and dragged me along towards the elevators.

Getting the parking card I would need later to pay and get out of the parking garage was not an easy thing to do with Brittany playfully tugging on my wrist, trying to pull me away from the automat the whole time.

She was so strong that I had a laughing fit when I tried to hit the green button to get the card because Brittany would pull at me whenever I was only an inch away from it, effectively jerking my finger back from the automat.

"Britt, stop it! You're making this take _longer_!" I got out between laughs.

Brittany just giggled shrilly and tugged again, but this time I had managed to push the button just in time before I was stumbling away backwards once more.

I shook my head at her as my laughter turned into giggles as well and retrieved the card. Britt was beaming and grabbed my lower arm.

A young father with his two little daughters was already in the elevator when we came hurrying towards it and held the doors open for us as they began to close.

Brittany thanked him with a bright smile as we stumbled in, still giggling, and he smiled at us amusedly.

We settled in the back of the rather large elevator and Brittany leaned against the bar that was fixed there with her hands between it and her lower back, swaying back and forth a little and humming something.

She was grinning at me wickedly and I frowned at her, smiling, because it looked like she wanted to say something or at least was thinking something about me and I had no idea what would make her look at me like that right now, so I smiled and frowned at her because that's the look that tells people you're annoyed they're not telling you something but that you're not angry about that, just curious and a little impatient.

She chuckled at my expression and leaned over to me. I took a step towards her so that my ear was directly at her mouth.

I felt her breath hit my skin and then she whispered in a low voice, "by the way… I'm not wearing any _knickers_."

* * *

She was still laughing at me when we arrived at the coffee shop inside the mall where Quinn and I had agreed to meet.

"It's not funny, B!" I hissed, somewhat annoyed.

"Yeah, it kinda is, San! You should have seen your face! It was like," and she grimaced into the shocked, stupid face I must have made when she had made that joke in the elevator.

"Stop it!" I swatted at her shoulder as we went inside. "It could have been true, you know! It's not like you've never done that before!" I spat back at Brittany, who was still giggling behind me.

"Done what?" I looked to the left and saw Quinn raising an eyebrow at the two of us from her seat at one of the small coffee tables.

"Ugh, nothing!" I groaned as I snaked through the other tables to where she was sitting and sat down to her left while Brittany slumped down into the chair on her other side, so that we were all placed around the small round table.

"Yeah, nothing. I was just teasing Santana." Brittany informed Quinn who smirked approvingly and I rolled my eyes at the two, glad that Brittany hadn't told Quinn about her 'commando'-joke.

"Whatever" I muttered sulkily and craned my neck to see if there was a waiter near us. There was and I signaled him that we wanted to order.

While he made his way towards us, Brittany calmed down and tapped Quinn's cup. "What are you drinking?" she asked interestedly.

Quinn pushed the cup towards her to try and Brittany smiled and sipped.

She put the cup back down and squinted her eyes as she puckered her lips and shifted them from one side to the other to get the most flavor out of the small sip.

"Hmm! I like it." She finally said. "What is it?"

"Vanilla Cappuccino." Quinn answered, taking back her cup and bringing it to her lips.

"Hello, what can I get you?" the waiter asked as he arrived and I looked at Brittany, raising both eyebrows in question.

"Umm, you go first." Brittany deferred, so I looked up at the scrawny guy's face and ordered a mango flavored frozen yoghurt for myself before asking him what cupcakes they had. He said they only had two kinds today. Cherry-chocolate and vanilla with sprinkles on top.

"The one with sprinkles?" I asked, looking at Britt and she nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay, and what will you have to drink, miss?" the waiter directed his question towards Brittany as he wrote down our order on his little pad.

She bit down on her lip and looked at me. I could tell she couldn't decide so fast, so I suggested she should get a hot white chocolate instead of the vanilla cappuccino, because she already had vanilla in her cupcake and because she liked chocolate more than coffee anyway.

She agreed, happy I had found what she wanted for her, and the waiter smiled politely, nodding before he took off again.

I turned around to Quinn and Brittany and noticed Quinn was eyeing me skeptically, furrowing her brow in confusion.

"What?" I asked her, still a bit tense and annoyed.

_What's with everybody frowning at me today?_

Quinn snorted and raised her eyebrows. " _What_ are you _wearing?"_ she asked, leaning back in her chair and trailing her eyes up and down my body.

I looked down at the outfit Brittany had chosen for me and felt my cheeks heat up.

 _Damnit! This really_ doesn't _look like something I would wear, does it? I forgot we were meeting Quinn. And now look what she did! Brittany's gonna be sooo insulted or probably more sad!_

"Shut up!" I hissed quietly towards Quinn. Shifting uncomfortably in my chair and hoping Britt hadn't been listening.

"Oh, she's wearing a 'little birdy shirty' and some leggings and I think she's not wearing a bra, but I know she's sporting my red thong." Brittany chimed in helpfully.

" _Brittany!_ " I cried out, reflexively crossing my arms over my chest.

"Oh my god! Too much information, Britt!" Quinn said with a shocked and regretting expression on her face, recoiling more into her seat and grimacing.

"Jesus!" I mumbled under my breath and covered my eyes with my right hand.

"What? You asked what she was wearing!" Brittany looked at Quinn confusedly before turning to me to explain it to her.

"I didn't mean that literally, Britt! I was just referring to the fact that –"

"That she's never seen me wear that shirt before and wanted to compliment me on it. Cause you really nailed it when you picked that out for me, _Britt_." I interjected hastily, looking at Quinn pointedly during the last words.

"Oh. _Oh!_ Yeah, that's what I meant. Looks really great, Santana. Nice choice, Britt." Quinn quickly backtracked and smiled at Brittany.

I sighed relieved and nodded thankfully at Quinn.

_God! That was close. Thank god Quinn got my hint. Why does she have to tease me anyway! I totally held back on calling her on those ginormous shadows under her eyes and the fact that she winces whenever somebody shuts a door a little loudly or drops something. Geez._

"Hey! Hey, so, San and I were thinking we should go check out that new comic book store to find something for Sam's birthday." Brittany hopped lightly in her seat, clapping her hands excitedly.

She loved checking out new things, so I knew she was dying to go to the store and look around at all the comics even though she wasn't really into those that much anyway.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. He'll love it. And I think I remember what kinds of comics he likes and which ones he already has." Quinn sat up a little straighter.

"Seriously? I don't even remember what color his _eyes_ are. Actually I don't think I ever _looked_ him in the eyes come to think of it." I said mockingly, lifting my cup to my mouth.

"Yes." Quinn shot back defiantly. "Not everybody's as self-involved and cold as you are, Santana." She frowned at me and crossed her arms across her chest defensively.

Brittany furrowed her brows in annoyance at our bickering and sighed, knowing we would just have to get it out of our systems. She hated it when we fought, or fighting in general. That's why _she_ would have probably just ignored Quinn's comment if she had been in my situation.

I however wasn't about to let Quinn take out her hangover-mood on me.

"Yeah right, Quinn. Says the girl who was trying to get Berry's mum into jail to get her bastard baby back even though she's not in the slightest fit to be a mother herself. But what the hell right? It's not about the kid, it's _aaall_ about Quinnie - Oh, I'm sorry! - I meant _Lucy_ Fabray!"I dished out heatedly.

"San." Brittany threw in quietly.

"No, Britt, let's hear her out! Cause, I mean, who's _more_ suited and entitled to point out someone's mistakes than _Santana_ , who's _never_ made _any_ in her entire life, right?" Quinn leaned forward, putting her elbows onto the table, her cup in her right hand while her left gesticulated harshly at me.

"Oh, no wait, that's not true. I almost forgot. _Who_ slept with Finn just to take someone's virginity and potentially ruin their relationship with their girlfriend? Let's see…" she pretended to have to think really hard about the answer and then getting it,

"oh, yeah… _you_! And what was it again you did last summer? Read to the blind? Oh no, yeah, silly me, you got a fucking _boob_ job which got you thrown off the Cheerios! And not to mention the wonderful way you smacked Artie, who's in a _wheel chair_ , when he called Brittany stupid, after you were the one who convinced her fooling around with you was not cheating, resulting in yet _another_ relationship _you_ destroyed!" Quinn raised her voice, pointing at my face.

My mouth fell open in disbelief and anger that she had brought those things up again and I felt myself get incredibly mad but at the same time really frustrated that we were fighting. _Again_.

I looked over at Brittany who was sitting quietly in her chair and looking really scared and sad, her lower lip quivering as if she was about to cry.

I let out a heavy breath and closed my eyes to calm myself down. It didn't really work.

"You know what, Quinn? You can say whatever you want. If you feel like you have to jump down my throat just cause you're hung-over and grumpy, go ahead, but don't expect me to just sit here and take it." I said in a calmer but stern voice. My eyes opened and I looked at her decidedly before I stood up and turned to leave.

"San! No, don't go!" I heard Brittany's somewhat watery cry as a chair was being dragged back and a second later she was spinning me around by my wrist.

"Let go of me, Britt! She doesn't wanna hang with us anyway. All she ever does is put me down and hold stuff against me." I said tugging my arm out of her grasp and was shocked to hear that my voice had broken halfway through the sentence and was now quivering as well.

_This can't be happening! Why would she bring that up again? It makes it sound like I broke Brittany and Artie up! Like I was jealous of him or something. But I just did it cause…cause he was no good for her! I was just protecting her! Quinn is such a bitch! She always points out my mistakes. She can never just let it go!_

I knew that was sort of rich coming from me, but I couldn't help it. I was really disappointed of the way this had turned out. I guess I had been more excited to hang with Quinn again than I had realized.

I felt tears form in my eyes and hastily wiped at them before they had a chance to fall down my cheeks and display even more how out of control and overwhelmed I felt.

"Please stay, Sanny. I'm sure she didn't mean it like that." Brittany whispered to me desperately, but I was already showing more emotion than I wanted to and I needed to recompose myself and get away from Quinn.

So I turned around again and stormed out of the coffee shop.


	10. Let's Talk

I was slumped down on the bench that was going around the water fountain in the middle of the Mall and feeling sorry for myself.

Contrary to what I had expected Britt had actually not run after me to try and make me feel better or whatever. She had stayed with Quinn in the coffee shop.

I could still see the entrance from where I was sat on the bench and couldn't help but glance at it what felt like every two seconds.

 _I can't believe Brittany stayed with Quinn! What the hell? Since when does she care more about how Quinn feels than how_ I'm _doing? This sucks!_

I felt another tear escape my eyes and let out a frustrated sigh as I carefully wiped at it with my finger so as to not smear my mascara.

When I looked up again I saw the two blondes exiting the coffee shop and coming towards me.

_Ugh. Great. Look at how sweet they are… strolling through the Mall together…probably coming over here to tell me that I'm being childish or whatever. Why don't they just leave me alone. They don't wanna hang with me anyway._

I sniffed and quickly turned my head away from them to hide my teary eyes.

… _okay, wow. Really feeling sorry for myself here. Come one, Lopez, get it together!_

I painfully gulped down the lump that had formed in my throat from trying not to cry and sat up a little taller when I felt someone else sit down beside me.

I assumed it was Brittany, so I was a little taken aback when I heard Quinn's voice.

"You forgot to pay."

I just remained silent, wondering why Quinn was the one that had sat down with me instead of Brittany and waiting for her to say something I could respond to without it turning into another fight.

"I paid for you. Brittany wanted to do it but she didn't have any money, so…" Quinn's voice was strained. Like she didn't know how to act or what to say.

I rolled my eyes and turned so that I wasn't leaning away from her anymore. We were now sitting side by side, both looking straight forward or at our shoes. I still didn't say anything. I didn't know _what_ to say. Quinn and I had never been in a situation like this. Normally when we fought we just didn't talk to each other for a few days – well, except for the bitchy comments. But now, now Quinn was breaking protocol.

 _What the hell is she doing? We're not supposed to talk to each other. That's not how it works. At least not lately. Brittany is supposed to be on_ my _side and she and I are supposed to just avoid each other and then pretend like it never happened until we bring it up in the next fight. This is all wrong!_

"Look, Santana, I'm sorry alright?" I was so shocked to hear her apologize, or to be more precise, to hear her apologize _sincerely,_ that I almost forgot to be angry with her. She didn't even sound sarcastic or anything.

"I shouldn't have brought that stuff up. But you kinda started it and bringing that stuff with Beth up… that was just, I don't know, it just got out of control."

I let out a deep sigh and looked up at her. She was staring at her hands in her lap and I thought I saw the corner of her eyes shimmer a little.

Suddenly all the anger and self-pity was gone and I just felt exhausted and sad. And a little empty. Like something was missing within me. Quinn.

"Why is it always like that with us lately? We're always just fighting and trying to hurt each other." I asked frustrated, the sadness vibrating in my voice.

Quinn chuckled coldly. "Was it ever any different?" she asked in return.

I didn't laugh. She was right. It seemed like it had always been this way with us. It seemed like all we had ever done was bring each other down. But we both knew that wasn't true. There had been a time where things had been different, better. Where _we_ had been better.

"Yeah. It _used_ to be. _We_ used to be different. We used to be best friends. Like, real best friends. Not the kinda crab that's been going on the past few years. I used to _love_ hanging with you and watching scary movies and blaming Finn when we accidentally threw that ball through Mrs. Donahan's window." Quinn let out a soft laugh at that and nodded her head in remembrance.

"Where did that go? What the fuck happened, Q?" I asked quietly, bowing my head again and studying my hands absentmindedly.

Neither of us said anything for some time. We were probably both thinking back to those times, that felt like a million years ago when it had just been me and her and life had been so much easier.

Or _I_ was anyway.

"I don't know, S. I guess high school happened and we just sorta grew apart. I mean, all of a sudden we both had a lot of shit happening to us and, I don't know, maybe, maybe we were both too hung up on our own problems to make room to pay attention to what the other was going through."

Quinn offered sadly. Trying to rationally explain what had changed.

I nodded in thought.

_Yeah. A lot of shit has definitely happened._

"I didn't have a boob job. Just so you know." I broke the silence and saw Quinn shift to look at me from the corner of my eyes.

When I didn't elaborate any further Quinn asked,

"What? What are you talking about?"

I bit my inner cheek and took a deep breath. Suddenly I wasn't so sure if I should tell her after all.

"Santana? What do you mean 'you didn't get a boob job'?" the tenderness in Quinn's voice that made me feel like she actually cared about _me_ and not some new bit of gossip was what made me go on. It was the voice I used to hear when she had comforted me when I had been crying because of my parents or something when we were younger.

"I didn't get one. I just told Coach that cause I didn't want her to know the real reason why I couldn't come to cheerleading camp during the summer." I said, still biting my cheek.

I looked over at Quinn and she raised her eyebrows at me to go on.

As I started to explain further I held her stare.

"Well, I kinda…" I bit my lip.

_God! I had no idea telling this to someone could be so freakin' hard! It was way easier telling Britt…_

"okay look, so I went to this one party and some Neanderthal apparently broke some glass on his way out of the bathroom or something, anyway, Britt had a little too much to drink so I helped her. You know, holding her hair up and stuff, but when I got her out of the bathroom I cut myself on some stupid broken glass. So of course my parents noticed _that._ I mean, they hadn't really cared that I was out all night, I don't even think they noticed I was gone, but when they saw the cut – oh, which was on my wrist by the way – "

I showed her a faint, white scar on my left wrist,

"so when they saw this cut they totally lost it. Saying, like, that they didn't know what to do with me anymore and that I was acting out and hurting myself and blah blah and then they told me I had to go see a fucking shrink!" I threw my hands in the air as the frustration caught up with me again at retelling this summer's events.

Quinn was looking at me with a sympathetically scandalized expression on her face.

"Seriously? They made you see a therapist? Didn't you tell them it was just an accident?"

"Of course I did! But you know my parents, Q! They only listen to what they _wanna_ hear! _Ugh_! It was so _frus_ trating!" I was shaking my head, once again feeling hurt by my parents' ignorant behavior as I relived it.

"So when I couldn't go to camp I knew I needed a good reason so Coach wouldn't kick me off the team…"

"And you thought telling her you got a _boob_ job was a good idea?" Quinn cut in, snorting and screwing up her face in disbelief.

"Shut up! I'm not good at improvising, okay? -"

"I'll say." Quinn muttered under her breath, but I ignored her and kept on ranting.

"I hadn't come up with a good excuse yet and when she ordered me into her office and started to babble about how I had gotten a boob job - no idea where she got _that_ from by the way... I bet JewFro with his fucking gossip-fetish had something to do with it - anyway, so like I said I didn't have a better explanation anyway, so I just didn't tell her I hadn't." I said a little defensively.

I frowned at Quinn. Well, not at her, more at the whole situation I had just told her about. It had been a really shitty time and I almost regretted telling her. But after the next thing she said I noticed _why_ I had told her. Why she was the only other person I had told aside from Brittany.

"That's screwed up." Quinn finally concluded.

It was as simple as that. I loved Quinn for that. For putting things simple sometimes. She was like me in that way, I never knew what else to say in those types of situations either. Any maybe that was okay, maybe nothing else needed to be said.

"Yep." I gave back hollowly. We were quiet again for a while until Quinn let out a small laugh.

"So, you're still seeing a therapist only because some dude dropped his beer bottle at a party and Britt had one too many?" she let out another laugh.

I felt my frown shrink away and chuckled.

"Well, I'm not seeing him _anymore_." I giggled.

"I told him that it was just an accident and after six weeks he came to the conclusion that I was actually probably telling the truth. But I managed to convince him that it would be better that I told my parents myself. Seeing as it wasn't his finest hour, since he had told my parents something might be really wrong with me in the beginning and he didn't want to fess up to them that he had screwed up, he agreed to that awfully fast." Quinn was now joining into my giggling.

"So now I go over to Britt's every Tuesday afternoon or just do whatever and my parents still pay Dr. Lieberman a hundred bucks every week which he probably invests in a new yacht or something, I don't know." I ended, snorting.

Quinn was shaking her head in amusement and chuckled quietly, looking back over to the Italian restaurant that was opposite from where we were seated in front of the fountain.

I grinned. _I like talking with her like that. I really missed that. Maybe we actually could get back to the way we were before. Being friends and stuff. I really hope so. Cause otherwise I just told my number one frienemy a hell of a lot of stuff about me she could hold against me._

I was actually a little queasy at the thought of that happening, but right now it seemed so far away that I could easily push those scenarios to the back of my mind.

_Besides, it would be so awesome if the three of us could do some stuff together sometime. Like some real stuff we actually wanna do. Not the scheming and hazing shit Sue had us do to Glee club and the Cheerio freshmen. Although, admittedly, those were kind of fun. But we could have, like, a scary movie night together. Britt would love it! She loves watching scary movies with me. Mainly cause I'm always the one who is more scared but whatever. Q's super scared too so she won't even notice. She never did when we were kids anyway. I should ask Britt what she thinks of that._

I looked around and turned back to Quinn.

"Hey, where's Britt anyway?" I asked, only now noticing that I hadn't seen her since she had come out of the coffee shop with Quinn.

"Oh, she said she would go ahead and check out that comic store. I didn't know she's into those sorts of things. I guess she just wanted to give us time to talk it out." Quinn mused, staring blankly at the sign of the restaurant. She seemed like she was deeply in thought about something.

I nodded and hummed, looking down at my hands in my lap again. I couldn't help but smile a little.

_Brittany is really good at that. At knowing when people need to talk and stuff. She's just really smart. God. Why can nobody see that?_

The smile slipped away from my face and my brows creased instead. _That makes me so mad. People are so stupid!_

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, that I almost forgot Quinn was there until I heard her take in a breath and I glanced up at her.

She was still wearing that same thoughtful expression, only now it looked like she had decided to share those thoughts with me.

"I'm sorry about your parents, Santana. I know how much that must suck." She said simply, still not meeting my eyes.

I looked at her confused. "What are you talking about? What would _you_ know about shitty parents? I mean, yeah, your dad totally reacted like an eighteenth century priest to that whole teen mum business last year, but, come on, they got back together not a month after your mum threw him out and now they seem totally fine with it. With you living there again and everything." I stated. And I almost got a little mad again.

What had she to complain about? It was like a freakin' story from a teeny book. I mean everything good happened to her in the end. She got knocked up – The baby got a somewhat decent mum who moved close by and allowed her to visit, plus she lost the baby weight in under a month and was back on top of the school in no time. Her parents split up – her dad moved back in, everybody's happy. For Quinn, it seemed like, things always eventually worked out. Well, almost always. But still… Right?

She let out something between a huff and a humorless laugh and shook her head sadly.

"Yeah, it seems that way, doesn't it? After all, they're still really good at keeping up appearances. Playing house. Constantly worried about what others might think of us and what they might say." She let out a heavy sigh and I bit my lip, eyeing her carefully. I guess I had been wrong.

"I thought that would finally change when my mum threw him out, but no, he somehow convinced her that she had to take him back so people wouldn't gossip about that too, on top of everything I already screwed up by getting pregnant." She continued and I leaned closer to her when her voice broke on the last word, putting a hand on hers on the bench.

"Ugh! He still won't talk to me except to tell me I should help my mum wash the dishes or something and now my mum's totally on his side again. Well, at least when he's around! It's horrible! I'm almost never home now because I just can't stand being in that house with them. With _him._ I hate it." She sniffed and wiped at the tears that had started falling down her cheeks.

I was shocked. How could something that seemed so good and wholesome on the outside be so broken and ugly on the inside? I had to swallow hard to hold myself back from crying with her. I had been so wrong. And I should have been there.

"I should have been there. I'm sorry, Q! I'm really sorry." I said huskily, squeezing the hand I was still covering with mine.

To my surprise she laughed hoarsely, finally breaking her stare from the 'Pedro's Panini Paradise' sign to meet my eyes.

"Man! A lot of shit sure happens to us, S. We must have really jinxed it when we wrote that 'We love our shiny princess lives so much' song when we were eight."

I snorted. "Oh my god! I totally forgot about that! We should spruce it up and make it a duet for glee." I joked as another loud laugh escaped my mouth. We chuckled a little, happily remembering those days, until we calmed down again.

After a second I leaned my head against Quinn's shoulder and closed my eyes.

"I miss you, Q." I sighed almost inaudibly.

I felt Quinn smile against my head and then she squeezed my hand that was still holding hers.

"I miss you too, S."

I grinned and kept still for a moment before lifting my head and turning to look – no, _scowl_ \- at her before saying in a mockingly warning tone, "But not as much as I miss being queen bitch, so you better watch it, Fabray."

She snorted in return and wrinkled her forehead in amusement.

"Yeah right, Lopez. Bring it on." She nodded her head at me in a street gang kinda way and that made me laugh even harder.

She just shook her head grinning and nudged me to get up.

"Come on, Lopez, let's help Brittany choose one of those 'graphic novels' for our ex." She giggled and I sighed and stood up, linking my arm in hers before we went off to find Brittany.

* * *

When we got to the comic book store Quinn and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Britt? What are you doing?" Quinn asked chuckling.

Brittany was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the store on the floor, four or five comic books sprawled around her, and seemed to be deeply engrossed in one of them. She didn't react.

"Hey, whatcha reading there, Britt?" I asked gently as I crouched down beside her. She gave a little jump and looked at me with doe-in-the-headlight eyes before she relaxed and grinned first at me and then up at Quinn.

"Oh, hey guys! I was just looking for something to get Sam, but then I remembered that I didn't know what kind he liked so I just looked through a lot of them hoping I would see one that reminded me of some of the weird stories he tells and then I found this one and I really liked it and then you guys came. Oh, but I don't know if Sam will like it, I've never heard him tell stories about ducks." Brittany pouted, slightly frowning at the fact that she had lost focus on the goal.

Quinn chuckled again. "Well, that's all very nice Brittany, but why are you on the floor?" she asked, eyeing something I couldn't see from my crouched down position. I got up and followed her line of sight.

Two rows behind the one we were in stood some pale, pimply kid in a blazer. He looked like he could maybe be the manager and it seemed like he didn't quite know what to with us. Or rather with Brittany. I guess he didn't get too many hot seventeen year-old girls sitting down on the floor to read his comic books. I pressed my lips together as I tried to swallow my laughter and winked at him. His eyes grew big and he scurried away quickly. I laughed, turning back around to Quinn and Brittany.

Brittany looked up at us confused. "What do you mean? I wanted to read the comic books, and I got tired of standing so I sat down. I knew it would take you two a while to – OH MY GOD!" she screamed and both Quinn and I flinched together at the sudden increase in volume.

"Ah! What? What?" we both asked in hushed tones to remind her we had to be quieter.

Brittany beamed at us. "You guys made up!"

I rolled my eyes, grinning, and looked over at Quinn who was looking at me amusedly.

"Yes. Santana and I talked about some things." She smiled at me.

"Yay!" Brittany squealed and clapped her hands happily before she jumped up and pulled the two of us into a bone-crushing hug.

"God, Britt. It's not like we cured cancer or something." I said, but I was still grinning. Especially when Quinn croaked that she couldn't breathe and Brittany hastily released us, looking sheepish.

Quinn coughed a little, holding a fist in front of her mouth while the other hand was pressed against her collarbone, and then pointed down at the almost forgotten comic books on the floor.

"So which ones have you got there?" she asked after clearing her throat.

Britt whirled around and picked them up. "Oh, I got Spiderman and Batman and some other 'man' – " she counted off as she showed them to us, but Quinn shook her head at all of them. "and then I got the one with some woman who has a lot of muscles and throws guys around and…"

"No, no, no, Sam has all _those_ three already and this one looks more like a weird fetish or something." Quinn told Brittany as she took the comic books out of her hands.

Brittany pouted and looked really disappointed that she hadn't found the right present for Sam.

"Sorry." She muttered, biting her lip and looking at the floor. _Ugh, Quinn!_

"Oh, no Brittany it's okay!" Quinn said hastily as I went over and put a soothing hand on Brittany's back.

"I'll just go look for something. Really, it's alright." She looked at me, worried she had offended Brittany.

"Yeah, Brittz. Quinn will find something. She knows Trouty Mouth better than either of us anyway." I said quietly and nodded to Quinn that it was fine for her to go.

Quinn gave Brittany one last apologetic smile before she went to look for a good comic book to buy for Sam.

I continued stroking Brittany's back but she seemed to be lost in thought. "Hey." I said quietly so she would look up. She didn't. "Are you still upset?" she shrugged her shoulders. "Quinn didn't mean anything by it."

"I know." Brittany mumbled. I frowned. "Then what is it?"

"I just, I don't know. I really wanted to find something for him. Sam is a good guy and I always try to listen to him when he talks about comics and stuff, but it's just so boring. I always zone out. I just wish I knew more about comics." Brittany sighed.

I stepped in front of Brittany. She was still looking at the floor and still seemed a little sad, so I grabbed her by her shoulders to make her look at me and when she finally did I said,

"Hey, come on, we both know that even though she tries to hide it, Quinn is really a _nerd_." A smirk crept on her face and that made me smile too. "I'm telling you," I went on. "It's not that you don't know much about comic books. It's that _she_ knows _too_ much." I said, eyes wide and nodding my head for emphasis.

"HEY! I _heard_ that Santana!" Quinn called from two rows over. Brittany and I giggled. "I am _not_ a nerd." Quinn huffed, her voice getting closer until she appeared at the end of the row.

"Well have you found the right one yet?" I sniggered, turning around to face her, while Brittany was still giggling behind me.

"Yes." Quinn said defensively, a stern look on her face.

I looked back at Brittany and raised my brow as if to say 'see? She already found it…what a _nerd!'_. Brittany snorted and buried her head against my shoulder. I grinned broadly and we began walking toward Quinn who was rolling her eyes before she whipped around to go to the check-out counter.

When we reached the end of the row, I felt Brittany turn around. "Oh! San, wait." She hurried back to where she had sat and picked something up.

"What is that?" I asked, raising a brow at her as she came up next to me. She stopped so she was standing really close and I unconsciously held my breath for a second.

She smiled shyly and pushed something against my hand that was hanging just below my hip. I glanced down and grinned at the comic book she was giving me.

"Can I have it, Sanny?" Brittany pouted, batting her eyelashes. _So cute!_

"Sure, Britt-Britt." I said warmly.

She squealed and hugged me tightly."You're the best." She whispered into my ear and I felt a little shudder run down my spine. _Oh fuck._

I just smiled awkwardly and went to pay for the Donald Duck comic.

On our way out of the store Brittany and I walked behind Quinn who was flipping through the one she had bought for Sam. Brittany held her new comic happily in one hand and with the other she linked our pinkies.

When I looked at her she had this huge smile on her face like I'd just bought her a new car or something and then she leaned over and quickly pecked me on the cheek.

I felt my face heat up and grinned.

_I love comic books!_


	11. Revelations

„Stop it! Britt, I'm serious! Cut it ou-aaaah!" I squealed hysterically, squirming around on the bed like crazy, trying to escape Brittany's tickling fingers.

It was Sunday afternoon. I had spent the night at Brittany's and we had just been hanging out in her room all day, while her parents had been out with Emily at some soccer-team-picnic or something.

"Take it back then!" Britt tried to remain her originally serious expression, but she couldn't hold back the smirk that was spreading across her face.

"N-aaah! No! NEVER!" I half squeaked, half shouted as she launched at me again, and hopped over to the headboard in one giant leap.

I didn't even need to look around to know that Britt wouldn't give up just because I had managed to get away from under her and to the opposite side of the bed, so I hastily crouched down and shielded my body – especially my ticklish sides – with one of Brittany's pillows.

Well, actually the pillow was only protecting my left side, while my right side was pressed against the headboard as hard as possible, so as not to leave any space for her fingers to reach the ticklish spot over my ribs.

I heard her giggle and felt the bed shift as she followed me.

"Say it! Say you didn't mean it!" she commanded, and I could practically hear her grin.

I shook my head violently as I was concentrating on gripping the pillow as hard as I could, expecting it to be ripped away from me at any moment.

"Nooo?" she asked, voice dripping with mock disbelief.

She drew in a very unconvincing regretful breath. "Well then I guess I have no other choice…" she sing-sanged the last word threateningly.

Even before she touched me in any way, I squealed in anticipation and ducked my head down further onto the bed, trying to fit my whole body behind the pillow.

As expected, not a second later it was all I could do to hang on to it as best as I could with Brittany trying to tear it away from me with all her strength.

I giggled shrilly from the thrill of our childish fight and clung onto the pillow as if it was the only thing keeping me alive, but since Brittany was way stronger than me it didn't take her long before she had wrestled my 'protection' from my hands and thrown it over her shoulder.

I could only just hear it thud against what I assumed was the door, when a wickedly grinning blonde threw herself at me, dragged me further down the bed away from the headboard and pushed me on my back, pressing both of my wrists against the mattress with her hands and quickly throwing one leg over me to straddle my hips.

"Nooo!" I wailed, still squirming desperately, but it was no use.

Brittany, effectively tightening her grip around my wrists, had me trapped underneath her and her beaming smirk could have illuminated a pitch black room better than if you had used the "Lumos Maxima" spell on it. _Okay yeah, so maybe Britt made me watch Harry Potter again yesterday…nobody could have resisted her with_ that _puppy dog look in her eyes! Geez!_

Breathing heavily and unable to move, I looked up at her. She was out of breath as well and judging from her rosy cheeks, pretty riled up. Just like me.

Although _her_ internal heat probably came from the childish tickle war, whilst the current running through _my_ body _now_ had little to do with the adrenaline jolt both of us had obviously been feeling during our pretend fight. The one _I_ was experiencing since the _second_ she had pinned me down forcefully wasn't childish at all.

Suddenly my racing heart and the shortness of breath had totally different reasons whatsoever, as I took in the sight before me.

Seeing Brittany, all sweaty and gleeful and _dominating_ , towering over me with a satisfied smirk was turning me on more than I would have liked to admit.

 _Oh god! That's so hot! How can I be so turned on when all we really did was act like two children and wrestle on the bed. Okay, I get how wrestling on the bed and being pinned down by someone can get you all hot and bothered, especially if that someone is as hot as Britt, but seriously! It's like whatever she does – it's making me want to jump at her. And_ not _in a kindergarten kind of playful way…_

After a few seconds – or was it minutes? – of blankly staring at her mouth, I actually realized that her lips were moving.

"- that you're sorry!"

"What?" I asked, completely forgetting what we had been doing before she had assumed this undeniably sexy position across my body.

Brittany rolled her eyes at me. "Ugh, come on Santana! Just say it! You really hurt his feelings!" when I didn't react at once, still trying to figure out what I was supposed to be saying, she shifted above me and trapped both of my hands in one of hers, raising the other threateningly.

My eyes shot open. "NO! No, wait!" I shouted hastily, bucking underneath her to prevent another tickling attack.

_Right, Lord Tubbington, fat joke, tickling fight, obviously lost…_

"Alright alright, fine! I'm sorry, okay?!" I gave up. She squinted her eyes at me.

"Aaaand?"

Now _I_ was the one rolling my eyes.

"Ugh, and I didn't mean it. There I said it. You happy now?" I shook my head at Brittany, who was now smiling down at me satisfied, annoyed that she had won again and managed to make me say it.

"Yep, almost." She chimed, lifting herself off me.

Leaning up on my elbows, I furrowed my brows as she jumped off the bed and over to the couch.

"You have to apologize to _him_." She said, groaning slightly as she heaved a sleepy Lord Tubbington into her arms and carried him over to the bed.

I snorted. "Oh, come on! You gotta be kidding me!"

"Santana!" the blonde warned slowly, as she dropped the fat cat next to me on the bed, which actually made my elbows lift off the mattress.

 _Seriously. If_ that's _not one fat cat, I don't know what is!_

"No way! I'm not apologizing to an _animal_! Besides! Just _look_ at hi-" But Brittany's raised eyebrows made me stop defending my name calling.

"God, fine!" I groaned again and threw my head back in defeat before getting ridiculously close to Lord Tubbington's face with my own and locking eyes with him mockingly intense – as well as you can do that with a cat anyway – and drawing in a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Lord Tubbington, for calling you an exploded toilet brush and suggesting that you should sue that sumo ringer obsessed cat breeder with the Garfield fetish for creating that massive amount of feline that is you." I rattled off in one breath as if I had read it from a piece of paper.

Lord Tubbington just blinked lazily and continued purring in short, ten second intervals.

_Jesus! He's even too fat and lazy to purr properly! There's gotta be some cat law against that, right?_

Brittany however seemed happy with my apology and sat back down next to the cat and started stroking him, smiling.

I just sat there watching her and shook my head slightly. How could anybody be so amazingly… unique?

Just as I was lying back down my phone started ringing.

I twisted around, propping myself up on one elbow, and grabbed it off the night stand without looking at the caller ID, suspecting it to be Quinn.

"What's up, Fabray? Can't find a man to keep you busy for _one_ afternoon? Didn't you use to have two? I think you're losing your game, Q!"

But instead of the expected snort or feisty return, I got told off by a shocked voice.

"That is incredibly insensitive and rude, Santana!"

"Ugh!" I groaned and let myself fall onto the mattress again. Brittany looked up from her hands that were entangled in LT's fur and gave me a questioning look.

"What is it, Berry?" I growled, making Brittany giggle in understanding and resume cuddling with the cat.

"Well, as you know, Mr Shuester has given us the task to interpret, perfect and perform one Beatles song of our choosing and as you all refused to meet up before my soirée on Friday to practice, " I thought I heard her tilt up her head in annoyance and hurt,

"and most of you weren't in any position to do so yesterday," I let out a little snort – _she_ , after all, had been the one giggling drunkenly at my little strip during truth or dare, so I couldn't imagine her head feeling too much better on Saturday than Quinn's or mine,

"so I think it would only be wise to gather at my house this evening for some fun time of rehearsing and –"

"Okay, I'mma stop you right there, Manhands!" I saw the corners of Brittany's mouth twitch.

"First of all, who the hell ever said anything about meeting up on Friday? _I_ 've certainly never heard of it." I barked, rolling my eyes at Brittany. But to my surprise the blonde was biting her lip with an apologetic expression on her face and mouthed 'sorry'. Apparently Israel had told her to pass the information on to me and Brittany had forgotten.

_Ah whatever. I wouldn't have gone anyway._

Immediately I heard Berry start to protest, but I cut her off.

"And secondly, you don't seriously think that Brittz and I don't have something better to do on a Sunday evening than listen to your frantic monologues about which of the Beatles has the biggest range, and that you can just call us up and we'll come running to you." I ranted heatedly.

Brittany was biting her inner cheek nervously and I could tell that she didn't like the way I spoke to Rachel.

 _But it's freakin'_ Berry _! You can't_ not _get annoyed by her. It's just not possible. You gotta say_ some _shit to distract the voices inside your head from trying to convince you to drive over to her house and strangle her with the phone cord. Snix is just too strong and easily pissed off!_

For a second it was quiet before I heard Rachel draw in big breath and she said, "Please, Santana. This assignment is really important for me and I want to do the Beatles justice. I've been looking forward to this for a long time now."

I furrowed my brow. "You don't even like the Beatles that much! You said their harmony was a little off and they don't present enough energy or whatever." I scoffed, a little less aggressively, as I watched Brittany pat Lord Tubbington's head absentmindedly.

I heard a small cough at the other end of the line and then Rachel continued in a hurried and brusque voice.

"Alright, fine. If you must now, Finn and I had a little argument about who would win this 'girls versus boys' competition and I really want to show him who's the bo – who's got the better teammates." She finished heatedly and I had to suppress my laughter as I shook my head amusedly, staring at the ceiling.

Brittany prodded me in the shoulder to get my attention and when I turned my head to look at her she whispered, "What? What is so funny?"

She hated missing funny things.

But I just closed my eyes and shook my head again, covering the receiver with my right hand while Rachel rambled on and on about some major insensitive thing Finn had done – shocker -, signaling her that it wasn't that important. "She's just rambling on about Finnessa. So just the usu-"

I started explaining, before I suddenly remembered why I had thought that Quinn was the one calling.

 _Wait a minute! 'Super Freak' is_ Quinn _'s ring tone! I remember when I put it in back in middle school after Quinn had told me about some freaky dream she had had about Mr Clean being her first kiss while a Gospel choir sang in the background…that was hilarious! She still looks annoyed when she hears that song. It's awesome! And anyway…Berry's ring tone are those three creepy high-pitched sounds that you know from the horror movies when the victim goes around the corner and there stands that guy with the ax…_

**[ watch?v=QYHxGBH6o4M ]** _  
_

"How did you get Q's phone?" I asked sharply through Berry's rant. She immediately went silent.

"Berry! How did you get Quinn's cell phone?" I asked again.

Brittany scooted over on the bed and pushed the phone an inch away from my ear.

"Hey, what are y- AAH!" I was just about to ask Brittany what she was doing, when Rachel's voice came booming from the little phone. Britt had put it on speaker.

I held the phone an arm's length away from my ear and muttered some Spanish curse words under my breath.

Brittany giggled and told Berry loudly to stop shouting and complaining why I'm not listening, because she's on the speaker phone now.

When the midget's unearthly voice had subsided I laid the phone between Brittany and me on the mattress.

"Jesus Berry. Do you have a license for that voice? It should be illegal for it to be magnified by any device!" Brittany put one hand on my knee to keep my swearing in check and I grit my teeth.

"It's not like you're vocals aren't being distorted by the phone!" she bluffed defensively. " While it is undoubtedly a highly convenient product of human intelligence, it's common knowledge that the phone as such is not the best acoustic carrier when it come to voices like mine…or yours for that matter."

_Seriously? Who talks like that?_

"Shut up, Berry. So, why do you have the phone?" I inquired again, ignoring Brittany's gentle squeeze on my leg.

"Well, as I just explained to you, Quinn has been kind enough to lend it to me to ensure you'd answer the call. She's apparently the only one who understands the importance of proper preparation and is – _oh, for the love of god, Rachel, just gimme my freakin' phone!"_

Brittany and I shared a look. "Quinn?"

There was a short rustling and then Quinn's voice was clearer.

"Yeah. Alright, listen, Santana. Get your ass over here. We're rehearsing at Ber- Rachel's tonight. And bring Brittany. Tina and Sugar are already on their way."

"Hey Quinn!" Brittany called out brightly while I snorted, "You're already _there_? Seriously?"

The next words Quinn said were slightly muffled, since Brittany had hopped up and down on the bed excitedly, which had made my phone topple over.

But what I gathered was that she couldn't stand being near Berry alone any longer. At least that's what I would have said. Well, actually I would have never even gone there in the first place. Especially not without a normal human being to protect me from Berry's 'dictionary talk for the proud and selfish', but whatever…

I picked up the phone, put it on normal again, and said, "Alright, alright. Fine, we'll come over. But I'm _not_ doing trust-falls again!" and with that I hung up.

I turned around to Brittany, who was still beaming at me.

"What?" I asked a little huffy.

Brittany rocked from one side to the other playfully. "Nooothing." She sing-sanged. "I'm just excited! I love Glee girl meetings!" I rolled my eyes and got up from the bed.

"God, why? It's always the same. Berry goes on and on about some shit nobody cares about, then we do some exercises to warm up our voices and in the end she's the star of the show and we're swaying in the background." I grumbled and turned around to pick up my bag from the desk.

When I looked back around she was still sitting on the bed and giving me a sympathetic look.

I hate it when people give me sympathetic looks. There's a reason why the word 'pathetic' is in it…

"What?" I asked a little harshly. Brittany looked down at her lap to avoid my glaring eyes.

"What? What was that look?" I repeated, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. Daring her to say it.

And she did.

"I'm sorry." She said gently. And it seemed like she was speaking more carefully now. Trying to phrase what she wanted to say so as not to hurt my feelings.

_Ugh! I don't need that!_

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me! I'm just pissed off and I have every right to be! God, Brittany! How can it not bother you? The way Berry treats us like her personal sidekicks makes me fucking furious! Oh, no wait! Actually the fact that Mr Shue lets her do it is even worse! I just don't get it! " I bit and I felt myself getting riled up again.

Brittany was eyeing me warily and creased her brows, before she looked at her hands on top of her folded legs on the bed. She mumbled something I couldn't make out.

"What?"

"I said 'that's not what I meant'." She said a little louder.

I just looked at her confused and annoyed. I was feeling so…so angry. And I couldn't really tell why. That happened to me a lot. I often got really angry really fast and I don't even know why. And it's exhausting…

She sighed resigned. I knew why. It wasn't just exhausting for me.

"I didn't mean that I feel sorry for you. I just… I'm sorry. That's all."

_What? That doesn't make any sense! What's the difference?_

"Wh-"

"Never mind. We gotta go anyway." She stood up from the bed and walked over to me. I thought she was gonna hug me, and to be honest I didn't know how to feel about it. I was still angry but at the same time I knew if Brittany hugged me I would feel better, I always did. I just didn't know if I wanted to let go of my anger so fast, it felt like giving up on something.

But it didn't matter. She was only reaching around me to grab her cheerleading jacket that was hanging over the back of her desk chair behind me, and then turned around and walked out of the room.

I stood there, arms still clenched tightly around my chest, and felt like I was about to cry.

* * *

On the way to Rachel's I had gone from close to tears to angry again to tired to just plain sulky.

Brittany hadn't said anything the whole way there. I think she wanted to give me some time to cool off or something. Or maybe she just didn't have anything to say to me.

Either way, the atmosphere was still a little tense when we got to the front door. I walked up the few steps leading up to it and rang the doorbell. Brittany stayed just behind me.

One of Rachel's dads opened the door.

"Oh, hello girls. Lovely to see you again."

"Hey Mr Berry." Brittany's soft voice came from behind my back.

"Rachel and the other girls are in the basement." He smiled and pointed at the door that led to the stairs.

I just nodded briskly and pushed past him while Brittany thanked him sweetly before hurrying after me.

The basement didn't look too much different from the last time I had been here. The stage was still there and some stuff about Rachel that almost resembled a shrine and the washing machine nobody was allowed to sit on and the couches. Yeah, it looked almost the same, except for that it didn't have those weird banners and stripes hanging from the ceiling and that instead of the wine cooler thing there was a small wagon with bagels and doughnuts and such and some lemonade or something.

It looked decently delicious and I suddenly realized how hungry I was.

I heard Brittany's stomach growl next to me and had to bite my lips to stop them from forming a grin. But Brittany was too distracted by the food to pay any attention to me anyway.

"Yum!" she murmured as she strode right over and grabbed a muffin.

"Brittany! Santana!" I heard Berry's voice shriek, and sure enough when I reached the bottom of the stairs I saw Manhands rushing towards us, her expression a mix between relief and an angry scowl.

"Where have you been? The girls and I were worried!" I raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her.

Behind her Tina was waving at me from her seat on the couch; Quinn, who was sitting next to her, had her face in her hands and looked at me with shaking head and rolling eyes, while Sugar beamed and jumped up from the armchair next to the couch, clapping her hands and squealing in her annoying, Barbie-like voice:

"Yay! Let's sing then!" I snorted.

 _Okay, that's hilarious. She didn't let them start without us? At least she recognizes that I'm the only_ seriously _talented singer here. Well, me and Mercedes. Where is Lady Jones anyway?_

I scanned the room but couldn't find her anywhere.

"Put that down!" I turned around to see Brittany looking shocked and scandalized when Rachel snatched the muffin right out of her mouth.

"Mmmh! Hey!" she complained a little muffled, holding one hand under her chin and slightly bending forward to catch the crumbs falling from her mouth.

"They're for _after_ the rehearsal!" Rachel said pointedly and put the half eaten Muffin daintily back onto the plate.

Brittany frowned at her and unconsciously pouted her lower lip out.

_Aaaw. That's so cute. Fucking Berry! Britt's so hungry! And me too!_

"Lighten up, Nose! Just let her have a fucking Muffin. Jesus. If you're gonna pull that 'Berry's Rules' shit again I'm outta here." I snapped and walked back up a few steps for emphasis.

But before I could get as far as halfway up the stairs, Rachel – and to my surprise Quinn –had started protesting.

"Santana! We need to practice and you're being incredibly rude and difficult."

"God, S! Just sit down and shut up so we can get started and finish sometime before midnight."

I rolled my eyes and went back down and over to Brittany who had apparently snuck the Muffin back into her mouth, since she looked like a little hamster and tried to seem smaller than she was to not draw attention to herself.

I smirked at her and she gave me a little, wobbly cheeked smile.

"Brittany!" Berry chided as I giggled and grabbed a doughnut. "Santana!"

We ignored her and went over to the second couch that was facing the one Quinn and Tina were sitting on. As I slumped onto it, Rachel rushed over to the piano and rustled with a stack of notes before going around and handing them out to us.

And yes, she really did have a freakin' _piano_ in her basement. I couldn't believe it either.

"So I took the liberty of rearranging the songs to our strengths. Obviously Santana, Mercedes and myself will be the lead singers. And-"

"Wait a minute. Songsss?" Tina interrupted. "As in plural?"

She looked around at us. Sugar eyed the stack of paper Rachel had just dropped in her lap.

"Weren't we supposed to choose _one_?" she asked confused.

"Yes, but I assumed that you would like to be included in the choosing process, so I narrowed it down to four songs and rearranged all of them. I think it would be a good idea to go through the lot and see which one fits our combined harmony the best."

Quinn raised her eyebrow slightly and I wasn't sure if it was because she hadn't been mentioned as lead singer, or if she was impressed by Rachel's uncharacteristically 'team player' spirit today.

I wasn't impressed by either one. I mean, Quinn had a beautiful voice, but I just didn't see it in a Beatles song.

 _Although…the smoky quality might bring some authenticity to it. Hmmm_ …

Anyway, aside from that I was definitely positively surprised that I didn't have to fight for a leading part this time, but all the same I wasn't about to give Rachel a gold medal for it. It should be a given after all.

I took the stack of sheet music from her and inspected it carefully.

_'A Day in the Life', 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', 'With a little help from my friends' and 'Come Together'. Not bad choices. Brittany's gonna be disappointed though._

And sure enough, as I looked over at Brittany I saw a little pout.

She turned to me and asked, "Where's the one with the strawberries?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't really know what to say to that. I loved that song too, but I wouldn't have placed it in the top four either. I didn't wanna tell Brittany that though.

She looked back down at her sheet music. "I really like that one." She mumbled disappointedly.

"I know." I said soothingly and rubbed her back. "We can listen to it on the car ride home."

She immediately lit up and smiled at me brightly, nodding her head enthusiastically.

It made me smile as well and a warm tingling sensation shot through my body. I loved that smile. And I especially loved it when it was just for me like right now.

Her eyes were staring into mine and I couldn't look away. I saw them flicker down to my mouth for a second and felt my heart rate pick up.

We hadn't done any sexy stuff since the party at Finn's - well accept you count that tiny bit of kissing we did before we got ready to meet Quinn at the mall. Not even yesterday night. I had really wanted to, but Brittany had snuggled up to me during Harry Potter and then fallen asleep on top of me and I hadn't had the heart to wake her.

But the way she was looking at me now, I was sure that that wasn't gonna happen again tonight.

She quirked one eyebrow and let her eyes slowly wonder down to my chest and back up to my lips, before she linked eyes with me again, a twinkle sparkling in her pair of blues. It was like she was daring me to make a move on her. _Freakin' elevator eyes! Such a turn on!_

I gulped and had to concentrate on not reaching over and kissing her right at that moment. Instead I tore my gaze away from hers and started to nervously crack my fingers as I forced my eyes to stay on the music lines in front of them.

 _Fuck. I hope that wasn't too obvious. It's like a freakin' trance! When she looks at me like that I just, I can't…_ not _look at her and think about her and…ugh! Please don't let Quinn or the others have seen it!_

My heart was banging furiously as I looked around at the others. _  
_

Our little' conversation' however had gone completely unnoticed, since the other girls were all discussing which one of the songs we should choose.

"Oh come on! Let it be! It's a classic! It's the all time favorite!" Quinn exclaimed. "Why didn't it even make the list?"

Rachel, who had just been shushing Sugar's cries of 'Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!' – _I don't even think Asperger's knows why that is hilarious! It sounds like she's teasing and cheering Quinn on at the same time! –_ turned around to her.

"That's exactly the reason why I didn't choose it, Quinn. It's what they expect us to choose." Her look became a bit desperate and frustrated. "Come on, I put a lot of thought into those! Just pick one of the songs I narrowed it down to!" Rachel whined. _She almost sounded like a normal person there. Fascinating._

"Well, I personally like 'With a little help from my friends'. I've never even heard of 'A Day in the Life'." Tina said, which earned her a frown from both Rachel and Quinn.

"Yeah, I like that one too." I agreed. "But I actually say we go with 'Come Together'."

Rachel nodded thoughtfully and turned her attention to Brittany. "Brittany? What do you think?"

_Something's really weird today. Is it just me or is Berry freakishly less controlling than usual right now?_

I avoided looking over at Brittany, just to be safe, and got up to get myself a drink instead.

When I got back they had apparently brought it down to either 'With a little help from my friends' or 'Come Together', but now we were stuck.

"We need a tie-breaker!" Sugar exclaimed frustrated. "I say my vote counts double, since my daddy's gonna be paying for our costumes."

I snorted unamusedly.

"First of all, your daddy is stinkin' rich, he wouldn't even notice if you we used his money to buy 'Bloomingdales', so shut it, and second of all…where the hell is Mercedes?" I turned to Rachel.

"Didn't you hear?" Tina asked from my other side and I turned around to face her.

"Hear what?" I asked, furrowing my brows confusedly.

Tina looked over at the others as she started to explain. Apparently Mercedes had gotten grounded because she hadn't come home after the party.

I felt a slight pang of guilt and looked at Brittany. Brittany looked just as guilty and bit her lip nervously.

"For how long?" I asked Tina.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I just know she got grounded."

Rachel sat down next to Sugar and laid the rest of the sheets onto the stage that was to her right.

"Well, I wouldn't feel too sorry for her. After all, she could have been more responsible. I mean, Finn and I had to drive both of them home in the morning! At least Mike wasn't too hung over to drive!" she shook her head disapprovingly.

"What do you mean 'both of them'?" Sugar and I asked at the same time, and Quinn, Tina and Brittany too were sitting up interestedly.

"Well, she and Sam fell asleep on the c-" Rachel started to explain, before Tina's squeal interrupted her.

"Oh my god! They're totally together, aren't they?" Tina exclaimed excitedly and Brittany and Sugar were clapping their hands.

_What?!_

"What?" Quinn and I shouted shocked.

"When did _that_ happen?" Quinn asked completely confused.

I wasn't as confused as her. After all, Brittany had sort of let it slip that they liked each other and I had seen them dancing together at the party, but I had no idea they were this serious _already_.

"Well, I can't confirm _or_ deny any information about their relationship status," Rachel held one hand up to calm us down. "I simply know that Finn and I found them sleeping on the couch the morning after the party and they seemed both rather nervous. Although that could of course stem from the after effects of the amount of alcohol they both consumed the night previous. They were rather jumpy." She giggled, clearly enjoying having the first inside scoop for once.

"How did I not know about that? Mike and I stayed until almost noon!" Tina scowled.

"Yes, but you stayed in the living room, whereas Mercedes and Sam spent the night in the basement." Rachel explained.

I didn't know what to think of that. Did I want Sam and Mercedes to become a couple? I mean, I wasn't jealous of her or anything. Sam and I had never really worked together, but something was bothering me. I just couldn't put my finger on it.

By the looks of it though, Quinn and I were the only ones who weren't too enthusiastic about this new piece of information. Although I think that Quinn might be more bothered by the fact that she didn't see it coming and not the information itself. She got up and went over to get a bagel.

"Oooh! This is so exciting!" Sugar clapped her hands again.

"They're so cute together. I saw them dancing at the party!" Brittany chimed in.

"You did?" I asked surprised. "I thought you were asleep."

She smiled at me brightly. "No, I was just sleepy. Not asleep. But the way you were stroking my back was so soothing that I couldn't say anything." I suddenly felt uneasy. Why did she have to say stuff like that?

"Yeah, sometimes people can seem asleep but they really aren't." Quinn commented quietly as she sat back down and with those few words everything in me froze.

_She was awake on the porch._


	12. Past and Presents

It was like everything stood still for a moment. Nothing moved.

Nothing moved while Quinn and I stared into each other's eyes.

 _Fuck, she was awake! Fuck fuck fuck! What – what am I gonna do? What is_ she _gonna do? What is she thinking?_

_Fuck she knows! She knows that…well, what? I – I made out with Brittany. But she already knew that. They all do since Brittany let it slip two years ago that we're screwing around._

_But this is different! She freakin'_ saw _us! This is real! Not just some mumbled words on the phone…she saw us._

_Oh god! Is she gonna tell? …okay but again, they already know about it …well about some of it._

_She's thinking there's more to it. She'll think we're a freakin' couple or something. Damn! But we're not. We're just …not._

_Okay, calm down. Losing it right now is not gonna help me!_

"Santana?" it sounded like Rachel had called my name several times and I quickly tore my eyes away from Quinn and focused on her.

"What?" I hissed and I was pleased to hear that my voice hadn't betrayed my inner freak out. It was steady and a bit bitchy, so like usual when I talked to Rachel.

She raised her eyebrows at me and looked at the others.

"I was merely asking which song you'd like to try first. No need to get hostile!" she bit back and frowned at me, probably slightly hurt at my unfriendly reaction to her 'kindness'.

"Ugh, you know what, Hobbit? I don't give a shit. And you can wipe that hurt look off your face, cause it's not like you just did me a huge favor or something, okay?" I immediately felt a bit better. Getting into someone's face – especially Berry's – just had such a calming effect on me. I felt safe.

I put my right hand up and perched my lips as I bobbed my head from side to side in my usual 'Lima Heights' way. "I getz the lead, cause I deservez the lead. Not cause you were big enough to share it with me. Got it? Okay, good." I stood up and walked up the stage, grabbing one of the mikes that were lined up there, and ignoring Rachel's scandalized, open-mouthed expression.

"You coming or what?" I asked annoyed.

When I looked down from my levitated position I could see the confusion in their faces. Well, except in Quinn's. She looked just kinda startled, not really confused. And Rachel was about to talk back when Tina just shook her head at her, signaling her to just let it go.

"What?" I snarled. "I'm hungry and tired and Snix doesn't do too well with that! So move it!"

To my relief the girls seemed to buy that excuse and I felt myself instantly relax, even if it was just the tiniest bit.

I loved Brittany for inventing Snix. In my opinion that had been her best idea ever.

No wait… second best actually. Although she had had her best idea ever later that same day on my thirteenth birthday.

* * *

" _Happy Biirthday!" Quinn and Brittany cheered when I opened the door._

_I was grinning from ear to ear and gave them each a welcome hug._

" _Hey guys! Come on in!" I exclaimed as I pulled back from hugging Brittany and ushered them inside._

_Brittany immediately made her way towards the smell of freshly baked brownies that was coming from the kitchen._

" _Wow, it looks nice in here." Quinn commented, checking out the party decorations my dad and I had put up around the living room._

" _I know, right? And check it out, check it out!" I pulled her over to the little table beside the sound system._

_There –sitting on its station – was my brand new IPod._

_Quinn's eyes grew big. "Oh my god!" She snatched up the shiny black device and looked it over in her hands._

" _Awesome, right?" I beamed just as Brittany came out of the kitchen._

" _Wha' ?" She asked muffled, chewing on a Brownie. She skipped over to where Quinn and I were standing and I proudly pointed at my birthday present._

" _Cool!" Brittany exclaimed while Quinn was scrawling through the playlist of mostly party songs I had uploaded that morning the second I had gotten to my room after ripping off the wrapping paper._

_I smirked. Until two weeks ago Brittany hadn't even known what an IPod was._

_I had told her that I wanted one for my birthday and she had cried out 'why? Are you hurt?', stopped mid-walk – we were going home from school – , grabbed my cheeks and stared into my eyes worriedly. After a minute of me struggling with her grip in bewilderment and her staring into my eyes, her worried expression had turned into a confused one and she had let go of my face, saying that she didn't see anything._

_It took us five minutes to figure out what the other had meant._

_Brittany had apparently never heard of an IPod and thought I had said I needed an 'eye-pad', which she thought was my nickname for eye-patch._

_Brittany smiled at me and gave me another hug. She did that a lot. Hug me. Most of the time I didn't mind. It felt kinda nice. Warm and...I don't know. Tingly?  
_

" _Is it the same one you wanted?" she asked me, still attached to my body in a tight embrace._

_It was starting to make me a little uncomfortable with Quinn standing right next to us, so I gently wriggled out if it and nodded._

" _Yeah! My parents got it for me for my birthday!" I grinned._

_Brittany practically beamed with joy. "Score!" she fist-bumped the air and span around excitedly to look at the IPod over Quinn's shoulder._

_I smiled warmly. Even though I had known her for a little over two years now, Brittany's kindness still amazed me at times. She was so happy for me._

_I mean, Quinn was too, but I could see that she was also a little jealous that she didn't have one._

_Brittany was just really and genuinely happy for_ me _._

" _How does that work?" Quinn pointed at the station with the hand that still held my IPod._

_I took the IPod from her hand and put it onto the station. "Choose a song." I smiled at Brittany, gesturing to the IPod._

_Her eyes grew big and she shook her head vigorously. "No way, Jose! It's your birthday, Sanny. You have to choose." She said seriously._

" _Can I?" Quinn asked, eyeing me excitedly._

" _Sure, go for it. We all know I only gotz awesome music on that thang." I smirked._

_Brittany giggled at my 'slang' and Quinn just rolled her eyes, grinning and shaking her head as she bent over to choose a song without taking the device out of the station again._

" _Kay, got it." She informed me a minute later, straightening back up again, and I went to the sound system and pushed a few buttons, until Caesars' 'Jerk it Out' blasted loudly from the speakers._

**[ watch?v=ReiM134WzVY ] _  
_**

" _Woooo!" Brittany exclaimed and immediately started dancing on the spot, throwing her arms in the air._

_Quinn and I let out a loud laugh, as we watched Brittany 'jerk it out'._

" _Hey! Who ate one of the Brownies?! Hostia, Santana!"We suddenly heard my abuela curse, her voice booming over the music._

_All three grins were wiped off our faces and Brittany froze as we all looked at each other with wide eyes._

" _Uh-oooh!" We gulped in unison._

* * *

_Four hours later the party was buzzing. It wasn't too bad for a thirteenth birthday party either, I thought as I watched Quinn flirt with one of the high school guys Britt and I had gotten to come._

_Of course it wasn't as cool as the parties in high school were gonna be, I had only been allowed to invite twelve people, but at least I was the only one from our middle school who had gotten her parents to leave the house for half of the night._

_And it was gonna get even cooler when Puck showed up with the beer he had promised me he would somehow get._

_I heard Brittany's laugh and turned around. She, Finn and Andrew were standing by the snack table, apparently talking about something hilarious judging by the way Brittany's head was thrown back in amusement, and I decided to go over there to see what it was._

" _Hey." I grinned as I nudged Brittany's side with my elbow playfully._

" _Oh my god, San. Finn just told me the funniest joke ever! Tell her, tell her!" she chanted giddily and I turned to Finn, who was looking sort of pleased but also a little exhausted. I guessed that he had had to tell the joke a few times already, since Brittany always needed to her a joke more than just once. Either because she hadn't gotten it the first time, or simply because it had made her laugh so much that she wanted to hear it again and again._

" _Umm, alright. So there's an article in the news paper…" he began and Brittany already broke out into a giggling fit. I glanced at her, biting her fist to stifle her laughter, and had to chuckle._

_I looked back at Finn, who went on over Brittany's snorting "…and umm and it says, get this, it says 'Police station toilette stolen – police have nothing TO GO ON'" He beamed and Brittany burst out into roaring laughter next to me._

_I had to laugh too, partly because it was actually kind of funny and not too gross for a boy's joke, but mostly because it was hard not to, when Brittany was practically crying from laughter, holding on to my shoulder for support._

_Finn looked extremely pleased with himself and Andrew patted him on the back as he smirked and turned around to mingle with other people._

_Just at that moment I heard a faint knock over the music and I excitedly hurried to the door, knowing it would be Puck with the beer._

_And sure enough, when I opened the door, there he stood with his stupid Mohawk, and grinned at me, holding up two six-packs of beer._

_I frowned. "Is that all? I got a dozen people here, Puck!" but he didn't seem fazed and just pushed past me, replying,_

" _Chill your nipples, Lopez. I had to stash some at Azimio's. He'll bring them over in a few minutes."_

" _Who's Azimio? You can't just invite random people to my party!" I hissed loud enough so he would hear me over the music, as I shut the door behind him._

_Puck was already on his way to the kitchen and I followed him, slightly panicked that he might have invited even more people and that the stupid new neighbors would tell my parents I had tons of people over._

_They were so freakin' nosy and busted me for everything. And since my mum thought it was important to welcome new neighbors she and my dad had already bonded with them. I was sure they had told them how many people I was allowed when they warned them that it might get a little louder tonight._

" _Puck, who else did you invite! I swear to god if y-" I barked as we got into the kitchen, but Puck interrupted me, heaving the six-packs onto the table._

" _Jesus, would you relax? What, did your mommy say you weren't allowed more than five friends tonight?" He mocked, and I immediately felt my ears burn._

" _Ha ha. No. But it's still my fucking party and not every one of your douchey friends is invited." I gave back harshly, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at him angrily._

_He just shook his head, and I saw his brow furrow in annoyance._

" _What the hell is your problem? I just scored you some booze and you're going all bitch on me. Not cool!" he frowned._

_For a moment we just glared at each other, before Brittany and Quinn walked into the kitchen._

" _Oh, hey Puck! I didn't even know you were here." Quinn greeted while Brittany just looked at him sternly. She was still pissed at him for throwing a stick at a cat the other week._

_She hopped onto the counter and I noticed that her mini skirt rode up enough so you could see her underwear._

_My eyes widened a second before I casually took two steps to my right so I was standing in front of her._

_I couldn't risk Puck staring at her panties. That dude was a creep. I was close enough that her knees were touching my hips and she leaned forward and draped her crossed arms against my upper back and shoulders, her head resting next to my ear._

" _Well, I just got here. And lookie what I brought." He grinned again, stepping away from the table and proudly gesturing at the beer._

_Quinn cocked an eyebrow and I was curious how she would react. I knew for a fact that Quinn had never drunken alcohol before._

_Britt and I had tried some of her mum's sparkling cider and her dad's beer every now and then in her room already, but we hadn't told Quinn, cause I wasn't sure if she'd find it stupid or something._

" _Want one?" Puck offered her and took two cans out of the pack._

_After a second, Quinn shrugged her shoulders and sighed. "Hell, why not."_

" _Atta girl!" Puck grinned and handed her the beer before throwing two to Brittany and me._

_When I opened the can, a broad black guy showed up in the kitchen._

" _Ah, there you are." Puck exclaimed, walking towards him. "You got it?"_

_The guy who must have been Azimio nodded "Yep!" He grinned and shoved two more six-packs of beer onto the table._

" _Awesome!" Puck shouted, introducing Azimio to the three of us, annoyingly calling me the 'birthday girl'._

" _Awesome." I said, half-heartedly waving from my position across the kitchen, not a hundred percent sure anymore that this had been such a god idea as I watched Puck down the whole can in one and Azimio hollering amusedly while Quinn started to hick-up._

* * *

_It was shortly after eleven when it happened._

_After drinking my beer and feeling the slightly buzzing effect spread through my body, I was pretty happy with my party again. People were having a good time, my music was awesome and Britt and I had been dancing with Andrew and Puck for a while._

_I saw Quinn talk to Finn across the room and had to chuckle at his ridiculous posture._

_He was pretty tall, so in order to hear what Quinn was saying to him over the loud music, he had to bend down._

_He was leaning into Quinn, his ear directed towards her mouth and he had the stupidest expression on his face. Forehead screwed up in effort to understand what she was probably shouting into his ear and a completely clueless look in his eyes, mouth hanging slightly open._

_Poor guy. Quinn had the quietest voice of anybody I had ever met. Don't get me wrong, the girl could scream, just her voice still didn't really carry that well over loud noises._

_When I returned my attention back towards Puck my jaw dropped._

_In the minute I had looked away, he had snatched Brittany into his arms and they were kissing! No! Making out!_

_Before I could even tell what was going on Puck was already stumbling backwards, away from Brittany with a shocked look on his face and a second later I had slapped him._

_He stared at me in disbelief and I felt my whole body tremble as he screwed up his face in pain and held his cheek._

" _What the fuck?" he yelled, and I could only just make it out over the rock song playing loudly in the background._

_I found myself standing between him and Brittany and couldn't for the life of me remember consciously pulling him away from her or stepping between them._

_I felt someone tug me away and went with them without protest. I was so stunned by what had just happened that I couldn't have moved on my own, let alone explained myself._

_When we got to the dark hallway, I saw that it had been Brittany who had dragged me away from the living room. She was staring at me in bewilderment, as I leaned against the wall, still trembling and breathing heavily._

_When I realized that my eyes were watering I blinked the tears away hastily._

" _What was that?" Brittany asked me shyly._

_I shook my head, "I – I just – he… You were…" I trailed off and tightly crossed my arms over my chest. That calmed me down a bit and I quickly gathered my thoughts as best as I could._

" _I was just pissed cause he had been dancing with me and then I don't pay attention for one second and his mackin' you?!" I covered my unexplainable freak-out._

_Brittany just nodded. "You wanna go back in?"_

_I shook my head and she nodded again._

_We stood there for a few minutes, in the dark, before I had calmed enough to realize that I probably scared her with my outburst._

_It had happened a few times before. That I had just snapped and gone all Lima heights on someone. That's what I called it. 'Going all lima heights'._

_Because I loved it how my big cousin Fernando had always joked about where we came from when I was younger and how it was such a bad neighborhood and that he had gotten into some street fights himself. I knew he was bluffing._

_He couldn't hurt a fly, but he was pretty ripped and when he had to look after me and I wouldn't behave, he would always warn me with that phrase and tell me stories about 'the streets'. It never worked on me though. I just laughed and wanted him to tell me more stories._

_Anyway. It had happened a few times that I had been so furious with someone that I wanted to punch them, but Brittany had never seen me this way._

_Around her there was usually no need to get so riled up._

" _I'm sorry." I said, looking at my hands._

" _What do you mean?" she asked, frowning._

" _Y'know…for kinda losing it a bit in there." I elaborated on my apology, chuckling uncomfortably ans still staring at my own fingernail picking hands.  
_

_When I heard Brittany giggle I looked up._

" _Puck's face was so funny. We should have totally filmed it! He was sooo shocked. And I totally saw your handprint on his cheek. It was awesome!" She chuckled softly. I had to grin as well._

_I couldn't believe Brittany, who was so sweet and anti-violence herself, wasn't afraid of that side of me._

" _Yeah, well, I'm pretty strong." I almost gloated._

" _Yeah, you're like the Hulk. Like, totally normal and then –wham!" she punched the air in front of her, trying to look like a professional boxer.  
_

_I giggled. "I'm not green though, thank god." I rolled my eyes._

_Brittany looked at me again and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. "Oh, yeah. Hmm. Then you're not the Hulk. You're… Snix!" she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in front of her body as if she wanted to grab something. I was slightly startled and jumped a bit at her out-burst._

" _Snix?" I furrowed my eyebrows questioningly._

" _Yeah! Like a shrine ego?!" I stared at her beaming face in confusion. 'Like what? Oh!'_

" _You mean like an_ alter _ego?" I asked amusedly, now smirking slightly._

" _Shrine, altar, whatever." She waved her right hand dismissively._

_I grinned at her. "Why 'Snix' though?" I asked, now completely amused by the situation and Brittany's reaction._

_She just shrugged her shoulders. "Don't know. The name just came to me. You looked like a Snix!" I laughed at that comment._

_Snix…Hmmm…_

* * *

 

_My parents had come home around two to an only halfway trashed house. Quinn, Britt and I had actually managed to kick everybody out around one and had started cleaning up the biggest messes._

_Puck, Azimio and two of the high school guys had basically finished the rest of the beer on their own while Brittany and I had talked in the hallway and had decided it was a good idea to show off their 'football skills' with some of the lamps and chips-bowls._

_Maybe they wanted to destract people from the fact that Puck had just gotten slapped by a girl. And it worked. Nobody mentioned anything. Maybe the music had been too loud to even draw attention to the little scene we had caused?  
_

_Whatever the reason, Brittany and I had gotten back to a cheering crowd surrounding the four guys who were pretending my living room was a football field...  
_

_Needless to say there was a fair amount of tidying up to do after that 'genius' idea. But between the three of us we had managed to get rid of most of the chips-crumbs on the carpet and had picked up the pieces of the broken lamp that used to stand on the mantelpiece._

_Britt, Quinn and I had just gotten changed into our PJs when we heard the front door open._

_We listened for any sign of rage coming towards us, but after three minutes of only hearing footsteps and quiet talking, I gathered that my parents had either expected to come home to much worse or otherwise were at least planning to save the telling off and punishing till tomorrow._

_We relaxed and Quinn quietly slipped out to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth or go to the toilette or something._

_Britt and I got into bed and she immediately scooted closer to me and hugged my side, making my insides twitch. That was happening a lot too lately._

" _This was sooo much fun! Thanks for inviting me!" she whispered gleefully against my shoulder and I had to let out a quiet laugh._

" _Of course you were invited! Geez, Britt! You're my best friend!" I replied, shaking my head in amusement at the sweet girl next to me._

" _I am?" she asked and looked up at me with big eyes._

_I furrowed my brows, cocking my head to the side to be able to look at her better._

" _Of course you are!" she looked a bit flustered._

" _But I thought Quinn was your best friend." She whispered, and I could tell she was conflicted about being glad I said she was my best friend while feeling bad for Quinn. 'She's such a sweety!'_

_I eyed her carefully. 'Quinn was my best friend. Before you came along.' I thought, but didn't say the words. Cause even though it wasn't my fault Britt had sort of taken over Quinn's position, I still felt a tiny pang of guilt._

" _And how d'you figure that?" I asked. Her eyes flittered downwards for second._

" _I don't know. You guys have known each other for like forever. We just met two years ago." She said quietly, looking back up at me hesitantly._

_I just shrugged my shoulders. "You're still ma bestie." I grinned down at her and felt a warmth flood through me when her eyes lit up and she beamed so big._

" _Sweet!" she squeaked and I had to laugh again._

_But the laughter got caught in my throat when she suddenly lifted her head from my shoulder and scooted closer._

_Her right arm was now next to my left ear and she was holding herself up above me. She was practically lying on top of me and even though she wasn't heavy at all I felt like I couldn't breathe._

_As if of their own accord my hands were on her waist._

" _Britt, wh-"_

" _We should kiss."_

_My heart just about stopped. 'What?'_

" _What?" This time I was the one squeaking. My heart had gone from stopping in one second to racing in the next and I could feel it hammering against my ribcage._

" _We should kiss." She repeated, and her hot breath hit my cheek. I shuddered._

" _W-why?" I rasped. The word was barely discernible._

" _Because we're best friends now and that's like totally awesome and we hug all the time so we need something better to celebrate it!" she whispered softly._

" _Okay." I husked as soon as she had stopped talking, finding that I didn't really care what the reason was after all._

_She smiled at me sweetly and my mouth went dry. I gulped as she leaned in._

' _What the fuck am I doing?' I thought as my eyes fluttered closed._

_My heart was about to explode …and then…I think it might have._

_Cause the second her lips touched mine it stopped. Everything stopped. There was no heartbeat banging inside my chest anymore. All I felt were her lips against mine. Soft and warm and then my whole body tingled. It was the most awesome and at the same time the weirdest, freakiest feeling I had ever had._

_She put the slightest pressure on me and moved her lips against mine. She opened her mouth slightly and kissed me again, this time enveloping my lower lip with hers, breathing in audibly through her nose._

' _Shit.'_

_Before I could really comprehend what was happening however, she drew back._

' _No!'_

_I was so dazed and had no idea why she had pulled back, until I heard the door creak shut a few seconds later._

_Quinn was back._

_I looked over to the door and she was just turning around to face the bed._

_Quinn tip-toed over to the bed and I could feel Brittany settle in and make herself comfortable with her head against my shoulder again. Right arm securely snaked around my stomach._

_I saw Quinn eye us for a second before she whispered. "Do you have a second blanket?"_

_I tried to speak, but found my throat drier than the Sahara._

_I cleared my throat and pointed towards my armchair in the corner. "Over there." I managed to get out, and even for a whisper it sounded hoarse._

_I felt Brittany grin against my shoulder and when Quinn walked over to get the blanket, Brittany quickly kissed my cheek before nuzzling her head into the crook between my ear and my shoulder._

_A shudder ran down my spine just as the mattress dipped under Quinn's weight._

_She shifted around for a second before whispering, "Goodnight."_

" _Goodnight, Q." Brittany whispered back, sleepily._

_I just nodded._

* * *

Yep. Those had definitely been Brittany's best ideas by far and I couldn't help but feel, grateful.

Snix had gotten me out of a lot of trouble.

Hm. Actually, she was what got me into it in the first place, come to think of it…ah whatever.

She had worked as an excuse now, which was very welcomed.

Tina, Rachel, Sugar and Quinn weren't surprised or mad now.

They all just gave each other those looks. You know, the ones that say 'Wow! What a bitch, but let's just do what she says. She kinda scares me.'

Normally I didn't mind those looks. Until recently I even provoked them consciously and smiled victoriously upon receiving them. But it wasn't as much fun anymore. Having people be afraid of you and talking _about_ you instead of with you. It still made me feel safer, but it wasn't fun.

"Alright then." Rachel chimed excitedly. I was glad to hear that she had apparently shaken off my insults and moved on to her usual over-stimulated pre-performance state of mind . "Tina, would you be so kind as to accompany us on the piano?"

Tina smiled happily and nodded. I think after singing, playing the piano was probably her second favorite thing to do. Well, maybe it was dancing, or something gross with Mike, but I stuck with playing the piano to be safe.

"Perfect. And Quinn?" Rachel turned to Quinn who was still sitting on the couch.

"Could you temporarily fill in for Mercedes?" Berry at least had the decency to look slightly embarrassed by that question.

Still kind of thrown by her earlier statement, I didn't look directly at Quinn, so I couldn't see her expression, but I was sure she wasn't too pleased with that idea.

"Ugh, really?" she sighed.

"Please? I realize this might seem a bit taunting –"

"No kidding." Quinn growled quietly.

""But we need to rehearse this and to hear how the harmony comes together when sung out loud. I mean, I'm certain I didn't make any mistakes, but it's always different, just dryly written on a piece of –" Rachel hastily began explaining and I was so thankful to Quinn for interrupting her.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Let's just get this over with." This time I saw her roll her eyes as I looked over.

I smirked and when she caught me doing so, she grinned back at me, shaking her head, silently mouthing 'unbelievable, right?'

There was no sign of her earlier knowing stare and I gratefully mouthed some insult back.

While Rachel, Tina and Quinn got up onto the stage, I turned around so I was facing the back wall of the basement to take a calming breath.

_Okay. Nobody noticed anything. It's gonna be fine. Quinn doesn't know anything. She just likes to freak me out or whatever.  
_

I bowed my head for a second as I closed my eyes and unclenched my fists. I hadn't even realized I had still been so tense that I had balled up my hands. I shook my head slightly at myself as I rustled with the stack of sheet music I had taken with me.

"Okay, so for obvious reasons I'd suggest we go with 'Come Together' first and then move on to 'A Little Help from my Friends'." Rachel directed with an air of importance, ushering Tina to the piano.

Tina just nodded again and when I chanced another glance at Quinn, she was looking over the sheet music for 'Come Together' in concentration.

I felt myself calm down considerably and put down my own notes onto the floor. I knew the song by heart, so I didn't need more than a quick glance at what Rachel had changed to get the gist of what I had to do.

Being up on stage again, even if it was just in Rachel's basement and just for rehearsal, gave me a weird sense of excitement and happiness. I loved being on stage. I loved performing, and I loved the way Brittany beamed up at me, giving me the thumbs up and winking, before we even started the song.

I grinned back just as Tina played the first notes and that's all it took. All of a sudden everything was right again as I felt the music flow through my body and I took a deep breath before finally feeling my throat vibrate in that familiar way.

I was singing. And for the first time in what felt like ages, I could feel my entire body relax into the melody.

**[ watch?v=axb2sHpGwHQ ]**


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